We have just got back from filming in Lewes, I think it went really well however we encountered a few technical problems such as:
hard to achieve parallel lighting for continuity purposes
unfortunately we discovered on set that the polaroids flash was no longer working possibly due to the cameras battery running low, so we will use a polaroid sound clip from the web to accompany the shots of our character taking the photographs
at times the camera was effected by the tripod when we wanted to achieve a panning shot of establishing the location, it was cutting our filming short on its own
The tripod was also losing security at points that interrupted the slow pace of our film
But on the plus side we did receive a successful outcome of having all of the footage we needed that included beautiful lighting in scenes, successful focus pulling and bold colours. All in all we are really pleased with making the decision to film on Tiger's DSLR camera and we look forward to pick and choosing the best shots when editing!
Today we are finally filming for our short film! We have got all of our props such as the polaroid camera, pretend polaroid prints as well as Tiger's Canon DSLR camera and tripod, then to refer back to I have big prints of each shot from the story board and notes.
As all of our footage will be filmed in Lewes, we are getting the train at 2 o'clock to then meet our actress Lola at Tiger's house when we pick up the equipment.
Shots wise, we will film from different shot distances and angles for the majority of our scenes as extra footage to reflect back on.
These photographs reflect the male character that keeps appearing in the shots that the girl is taking photo's of. We have edited them in a leaky vintage effect with a signature white boarder to portray a physical polaroid. we are going to print these on card and use them in the scenes that follow from her taking the photo's to pretend they have just developed from the polaroid camera. for a more realistic process of the polaroid, we have found a polaroid sound from the web that will onnect the clips alongside a few second black screen.
We have had to make a slight alteration with our actors for necessary purposes. Our initial actress to play the little girl was my sister aged 11 who unfortunately cannot be our actress any longer due to her not finishing school until 4pm which is when the lighting disappears meaning we won't have enough time for filming.
But all is now okay as my friend has volunteered to take the place of our female character who of which does suit the character and has had acting experience which is key.
We havent decided on a particular audience yet however we are aiming for an audiece aged about 12+ and both male and femail as we dont think our story is particulary aimed at a certain genre.
There isnt a particular social class that we are aiming our film at either, we think it will appeal to most social classes.
This is our male actor who will play the brother character, he wont need to do any acting however we will need to take photographs of him. We will take photos of him before we start filming as we will need the polaroids ready in advance.
We originally wanted a boy about 13 but unfortunetely we couldnt find any actors that we knew that were around this age so we decided to go with my (tigers) brother who is 14 and near enough the age we were looking for.
Costume: This character will wear a coat, jeans and boots as it is winter and we want the character to look casual and age appropriate. Costume must be consistant through out to avoid a mise en scene mistake and we dont want them to dramatically change costume within a scene.
Our Main Character: Autumn Winfield age: 10
Character 2: Main Character
This girl will be our main character, she will be the girl taking the photographs in our film. My sister (tigers) was perfect for this character as we wanted a young girl around the age of 11/12.
Costume: We want our character to appear very casual and age appropriate just like the brother, similarly she will wear jeans, coat and boots.
We have decided to use my (tiger's) dslr camera as it has HD filming and its very easy to preform focus pull. The quality is significantly better than the film cameras we are given in college.
Hopefully it will film well and be a good choice of camera.
We want our film to be crisp and high quality and my dslr would be a perfect alternative.
TRIPOD:
I also have a tripod so we will use my tripod instead of a tripod borrowed from college. We want our shots to be still and professional and a tripod will keep our shots steady and help us achieve the shots we want for our film.
We have decided to film around Lewes as it is most convenient for us and our actors traveling to.
We plan to approach general country side landscapes and street corners etc for our filming and the photographs we will make for our main female character.
-snapshot of one of the locations we will record
-bridge located in Lewes
-Extreme Long Shot to establish shot
-Another snapshot on one of the locationd we will record
-The Paddock Park again located in Lewes, an ideal location
for establishing a common landscape
-Extreme Long Shot to capture the grounds
-Snapshot of another location we will record
-Lewes south over grange
-Recorded as a Long shot to become more familiar with the boy that we identified in the previous scene.
The circle's around shots 3, 5, 7 and 8 illustrate the photograph's we will see the young girl take of her mum and the mystery man in the different location's.
POLAROID CAMERA
Our main prop is a polaroid camera, that will accompany the little girl throughout the film.
We have access to a polaroid camera however these days polaroid film is incredibly expensive verging on £1 per photograph acording to the prices I have researched on Amazon.
To resolve this problem of expense and save us quite a lot of money we have looked in to these posibilities.
CREATING POLAROID EFFECT PHOTOS
1. Photoshop
1) bring another camera along with us when filming
2) take a picture from the girls perspective
3) go back and put the photos onto the computer
4) manually via photoshop create our polaroids.
Here is a video showing us how to do this via photoshop:
2.Polaroid Image Maker
1) Download the free polaroid image maker app
2) drag the photos you wish to make into a polaroid effect onto the camera icon
3) the photo will then appear on your desktop
4) wait about 1/2 minutes for the photo to 'develop'
5) your polarioid are ready!
Here is a video to explain the process in more detail:
After researching Short films that particularly replace dialogue with either off-screen or diegetic sound, it has become obvious to us that we want to try to use a Contrapuntal sound technique when it comes to editing our piece. Contrapuntal sound occurs when the music and visual elements play against each other, and are in contrast, whereas if we were to use Parallel sound it describes the condition where audio and visual effects match, not in sync, but in tone and mood.
We found some sort of chat room where people have shared texts that respond to contrapuntal sound and the results were interesting.
1. Reservoir Dogs - Ear scene
A Crime/Thriller that uses the original of 'Stuck in the Middle with you by Stealers Wheel. The track is a piece country/folk rock from the early 70's which accompanies a gruesome scene of Michael Madsen cutting a police officers ear off. The piece of music is actually diegetic sound as he turns on the radio before he takes his action, rather than the music being completely unrelevant to the scene. I believe this clip does use contrapuntal sound due to the song being ebullient rather than something along the lines of being loomy and thrilling if to offer parallel sound. Although I find the lyrics do correspond to some aspects of the scene possibly from the victim's perspective.
'Well I don't know why I came here tonight,
I got the feeling that something ain't right,
I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair,
And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs.'
By using this particular piece of music, as part of the audience I don't expect what is going to happen. In responce to Steve Neale's theory of the audiences expectations of a film judging by particular conventions of a genre.
2. American Psycho - Paul Allen scene (axe)
Is a psychological thriller based on a Wall Street yuppie (young urban professional) played by Patrick Bateman whose mental instability and blood lust lead him to serial killing. In this scene Bateman slashes a very drunk and vulnerable 'yuppie' with an axe where the contrapuntal diagetic sound is introduced. The track is Huey Lewis And the News - Hip To Be Square which is a pop/rock band which was vapid in 80s pop. Through dialogue Bateman at the beginning of the scene suggests the band by questioning his victim if he likes them, then throughout the clip right until the gruesome action, Patrick Bateman is critical about the band and there success. This is an interesting way Mary Harron (director) has introduced the piece of music to accompany the serial killing. Again, the lyrics to the song in some ways reflect the characters within the scene;
'I used to be a renegade, I used to fool around
But I couldn't take the punishment, and had to settle down'
'Don't tell me that I'm crazy
Don't tell me I'm nowhere'.
although some of the lyrics are also a personal statement about the band itself.
3. Fallout 3 (opening cinematic)
Is a video game that uses a 1940's post war piece of music to support a futuristic conflict in 2077. Although this is not an actual film to support my film production, the diminutive use of contrapuntal sound is interesting as it is parallel with the subject. "The Fallout 3 intro
1950 style vacuum tube components flicker as the view scrolls back from
the old world radio, revealing a derelict bus and a ruined city as the
radio plays 'I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire' sung by The Ink Spots. Above the bus windows, there are posters encouraging people to enlist with the US Army". As the view point tracks out of the bus, the song diminishes into the distance which is replaced with an eary, echoed howling. "The Ink Spots were a popular vocal group in the 1930s and 1940s
that helped define the musical genre that led to rhythm and blues and
rock and roll, and the subgenre doo-wop. They and the Mills Brothers,
another black vocal group of the same period, gained much acceptance in
the white community."
4.Road to Perdition - Kill Sullivan scene
I'll start with recognizing the clever way the contrapuntal sound is introduced by it being played in another pat of the loccation, just not in frame, resulting in being diegetic sound. It is American crime film directed by Sam Mendes. The plot takes place in 1931, "during the great depression following a mob enforcer and his son as they seek vengeance against a mobster who murdered the rest of their family."
In conclusion to reviewing pieces of texts that use a contrapuntal sound technique, they all just happen to correspond a negative situation i.e Thriller, Horror, Crime, but are all accompanied by positive pieces of music that may often be played in Comedy's. Also i have discovered video games seem to use contrapuntal sound alot within trailers and game introductions.
The Conversation piece is a part of BBC's film network that was written and directed by Joe Turner. It was Produced as part of BBC Film Network's BBC Drama Shorts 2009 commission, in conjunction with Lighthouse Arts & Training and BBC Writers room. It includes successful actors such as John Henshaw and Celia Imrie.
The films description reads, "One sleepy Sunday morning, Jean notices a chip on a treasured vase.
She accuses Maurice, her husband since whenever. He denies it. Employing
a variety of tactics, Jean attempts to get to the bottom of the
situation.
This unique musical-of-sorts matches every single syllable of
dialogue to every single note from jazz cornetist Rex Stewart's 1966
improvised recording 'Conversation Piece'."
We liked this short film as its really different to usual short films where they just follow normal dialogue. The parallel music in this short film takes over the conversation where all we hear is the music.
The way in which the music is presented follows through well as we see one character put on a vinyl, which resembles a diegetic sound. The music goes perfectly with the diaglogue making them sound like their voices are the instruments.
We thought it worked well at the beginning but felt it went on to long and could have been cut short as it dragged out. This is an initial short film that inspires us to pursue a technique similar to using music instead of dialogue.
A short film from Everynone about the harm caused by bullying. I think this a good film to analyse because the film technique is really clever and there is no dialogue which is quite interesting as for our short film we weren't planning on having any dialogue either.
Representation:
Masculinity and femininity are represented by the different types of ‘losers’ there are , particularly young people. This film targets both genders, all ages to become aware of bullying and stating that its not acceptable and a lot of people are victims of bullying because they are ‘losers’ however in real life the bully is the loser.
Young people are the main social group that is targeted in this video, it shows people who have been bullied that their not alone and raises awareness of bulling. It also shows social realism as its such a common thing that almost every child/teenager goes through it.
At the beginning of the film it shows a few ‘stereotypical’ characters that in our day and age are classed as ‘losers’ then it goes on to show other people that you wouldn't necessarily class as a ‘loser’ but it shows that just because you have a different hobby, your clever, you are overweight it doesn't mean your a loser. It’s contradictory because its saying that the bullies are the losers not the victims. It shows the ideologies of what society classes as a ‘loser’ when in actual fact the ‘losers’ are the complete contrast and usually the ‘popular’ kids.
Genre:
I found it really hard to identify a genre in this short film as it is more of an ‘awareness’ campaign not a film with purpose of entertaining. I think the genre is informative as it is making you aware and showing you something, not entertaining you.
If it had more of a storyline to it I would say the genre would be drama as its a sad short film.
Audience
The audience is in general everyone as it is making everyone aware of bullying.
Mainly directed at young people as they are the people that are usually the ones that get bullied.
.JPG)
