Production Log

10/09/2012 PLANNING

Before beginning this project, I had started a personal media blog in year 10. This was to help me with organization for all of my media research and maintain all my resources in one place. I can look back at this to remind myself of all the research I do and keep it all together. This is the link to my blog: jennyadamsgcse.blogspot.co.uk.

When I began thinking about what I wanted to make, I remembered that I could use information from my study day to The British Film Institute on Action and Adventure. This day was led by Elaine Scarratt who analysed camera shot types, framing, camera movement and angles. This was very helpful and will make my film making a lot easier.

11/09/2012 RESEARCH

In my group I am working with Amber Saville and Charlie Atkinson. We need to create a short film opening that is about 2 minutes long with titles and credits. Our opening will be a dramatic thriller that we are getting inspiration for from the TV series Revenge. We looked at the film opening for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. The opening for this was all done on the computer using special software. It played music throughout the titles. We looked at all the different titles and what order they are displayed in. It was very fluid and used dark colours. The music played was fast and loud in the background. After this, we watched Don't Look Now which is another horror film. The opening for this film used a lot of cut away shots which was very clever. The shots matched two objects from one situation to another to show the links between them.

12/09/2012 RESEARCH

In today's lesson we watched Love Actually, where we looked at the opening sequence and how voice overs are used. We noticed various special effects were used like slow motion which with the romantic music gave a sentimental quality. We also realised where details about products, co-producers and studios came in as well as when the title was introduced. Some of the different types of voice overs include; radio, speech, song and a famous, recognisable voice. We also looked at the opening for Ae fond kiss.

13/09/2012 PLANNING

Today we looked at several antics from the 1800's. We discussed scenes which could use these antics to show the period of when the scene is set. There was a very old letter and telegram that were both written in French. There were also an old piece of cloth made out of cotton and lace. The colour had worn away and it had been slightly damaged due to the age. However this gives an effect that would create interesting scenes  We looked at many sheets of music that also were very vintage and written French. After looking at all these antics, we placed the sheets of music in order to create a love story. It began with songs that portrayed young love and slowly ended badly. The idea was that the man was not as he seemed and there is some mystery that needs to be unravelled. These antics and the story may be useful in our projects.

18/9/2012 RESEARCH

Today in class we studied the opening sequence of Delicatessen (1991). This opening contained the camera panning over the room and showing different objects. I liked how the credits were presented as writing on parts of the delicatessen shop, such as a folding ruler, a newspaper, a paper tag and an embroidered label. The colour tones used were sepia, black and gold with a dusty quality. The background was very French which fitted the period. The opening shot to this sequence is very striking because it shows the butcher lifting a meat cleaver and as he brings it down the percussion marks the moment. This establishes the films genre as one of black comedy. Karin Fong, a creative director and designer said this about the opening ‘It weaves in each of the crew credits with cleverness.’

Tonight I am going to continue studying the Art of the Title to look at how different film openings are done. I think I would like to look at Casino Royale, Blue Valentine and Bored to Death. I have been set prep to analyse 3 opening sequences that may be appropriate to my own project.

 Casino Royale

Firstly I looked at the opening sequence of Casino Royale (2006). It had a very effective opening as it began with a gun shot as the camera zoomed out from Daniel Craig. Red blood then trickles down the screen until the screen is completely red, and this is where the first credits appear. Hearts begin to appear and then the screen is filled with all the different card symbols which creates a very busy screen. It then turns black where 'CASINO ROYALE' appears in the centre of the screen. After this, the rest of the opening is very interesting as it is all animated. The frame is always busy and a lot is going on.

I like how there are many fights in the opening which end by the bad guy disappearing like confetti in the shapes of spades and diamonds. The whole opening is very fluid. It changes from one thing to another by the pattern on the screen expanding or moving across the screen to another scene. Daniel Craig is shown as the hero already as he kills all the bad guys.

My favourite part of this sequence is when a 7 of hearts card is shot twice and then becomes 007. This then fades to become a computer which is scanning Mr Bonds identity.

As the sequence is animation there is no reality, however as a gun target passes over the face on a card a ladies face appears and the goes back to the animation. At the end of the sequence Daniel Craig walks towards the camera as a black silhouette and then turns back to reality with a close up.

 Bored to Death

The second opening sequence I looked at was Bored to Death (2009).

This sequence was very interesting as it was is all based in a book. As it begins there is a book cover with the title. It then goes on to show the open book and the words jumble to become a man on the left page and a woman on the right. The whole sequence is showing the man following the lady through the book. A long the way the sentences mix up to become the credits and more people. It is very different from the other openings that I have looked at which makes it more interesting to watch. At the end of the opening the man reaches the girl and she pulls him through the door.

There is a strong beat that is played throughout the sequence and in the background is the sounds of pages turning.

Blue Valentine

The third and final opening sequence that I looked at is Blue Valentine (2010).

This opening sequence is for a romantic film as it shows a man and woman together who appear to be in love.

There is not much movement used as most of it is created with still photos with occasional movement.

The screen is very dark which is what shows the credits so clearly. After each photo the screen goes black and then is lit up with light. This is a very interesting change over that keeps it fluid.The man and woman are lit up with fireworks and soft yet powerful lights. The whole opening linked with the music creates a very romantic and moving feel.

19/9/2012 RESEARCH
We carried on looking at the Art of the Title in the lesson. Towards the end of the lesson we began planning out own ideas.

20/9/2012 PLANNING

In today's lesson, we began planning our ideas on paper. Throughout the lesson we came up with different ideas about what would happen. By the end of the lesson we had chosen that our film opening would be based on a suicide and would be a crime story. 

25/9/2012 PLANNING/ RESEARCH

Today we looked back at our ideas from the previous lesson and decided it was a bit too cliché  Therefore we started brainstorming again. Mrs Mann told us all about the Ivory Trade and this gave us new ideas. We spent the rest of the lesson researching ivory trade.

26/9/2012 PLANNING

In the lesson we drew out a the beginning of our plan for our final product. We drew out each scene in a different circle and linked them in order with arrows. Any important details are written along the sides. We only managed to fill out half the plan today.

27/9/2012 PLANNING

Today we carried on with our planning sheet. We managed to complete the sheet and the begin discussing other details. We decided one scene would be filmed at an airport, but the problem came up that filming in an airport may not be allowed. We also decided that we will use fake ivory that we can get to look real.

2/10/2012 PLANNING

We talked more about our plan today, and added information such as the sound that will be heard throughout. However this is just the early stages and may not be kept from planning to filming.

3/10/2012 RESEARCH

I was absent in today's lesson. I later on found out that my classmates were researching different useful websites such as Tumblr, Pinterest and Scoop it. These are all good ways to display pictures and information in a different interesting way.

 

4/10/2012 PLANNING

Today I took images off the internet that are similar to the backgrounds of where our scenes will take place. I put all these images on document which is displayed to the right.

For homework I then had to create a profile for my target market. I then had to take images off the internet of stereotypical people that fit into our film opening. For my opening the suitable people are a police officer, and an airport security officer.

9/10/2012 PLANNING

Today we looked at how to make a call sheet and the different things it must include.

• GCSE Media Studies Call Sheet for Blood Ivory
• Shoot date: 19th November 2012
• Heathrow Airport:all members of group travel in one car together in company of parents

 

Cast and Crew                        1.00-3.00pm

• Crew: Charlie Atkinson, 07*********, email
• Crew: Jenny Adams, 0796*******, jennyhadams@hotmail.com
• Crew: Amber Saville, 07*********, email
• Cast: Claire Atkinson, 07*********,  
• Camera equipment: Tripod stand
• Wardrobe: Police woman hat, tie, white shirt, black trousers

10/10/2012 PLANNING

Today we went outside, and took some practice photos which will help when we make our video. This helped us learn how to use the camera and allowed us to look at different camera shots and angles. The image to the left displays the  main character dealing ivory to a stranger. The image to the right is a close up shot showing the reaction of the woman after hearing a report on the radio about the seriousness of Ivory Trade.

11/10/12 PLANNING

We spent today's lesson looking at openings that are inspiring. One inspiring film opening was 'Don't look now.' We also looked at the opening for the TV series 'Zen.' Zen identifies the genre through the colours used and the buildings displayed in the background. The colours red, white and green instantly identify that it is to do with Italy. This is also shown with images of Italian buildings in the background.We began discussing how we could incorporate a shot of a X-ray machine into our opening. This would represent the ivory going through the security machine where the ivory goes through in a bag. This could suggest the character beginning her obsession with ivory.

16/10/12 PLANNING

Today, we started looking at different things that we can put on the pin board. The camera will focus on this board near the beginning of the shoot and therefore is an important part to look at. We decided we could incorporate an adoption form, to show that she is a fond animal lover. Also newspaper articles of 'Ivory Trade' and photos to clearly show that it is her personal board display.

18/10/12 PLANNING

In today's lesson we looked at more pieces that can go on our pin board. We found newspaper articles that will be useful and began thinking about how we would lay these images out.

6/11/12 PLANNING

Over half term I went away and was able to visit an airport. I managed to take a few photos, however they were not very good quality. However Charlie also visted an airport and the videos and photos he took will be useful in our opening.

7/11/12 PLANNING

Today we went through some of our scenes and discussed the props that we will need to get.

Scene 2- Close up on box

 -Cardboard box

 -Packing Peanuts

 - Ivory; Buddha, 2x Bracelets, 2x letter openers

8/11/12- RESEARCH&PLANNING

Today we watched the opening for Les Bleus De Ramville. Mrs Mann gave us each a prop and we tried to re-create the opening in a similar way. Some of the props were a hat, scarf, a small wine bottle and a wine glass. From doing this my group decided on some changes we can make to our plan. Our first scene now is going to be a panning shot going across the woman's desk which will display several ivory items. It will also show the woman's hand as she writes a letter. The camera will then tilt up to see a close up on an ivory necklace with the woman's face behind not in focus. The camera will then focus on the woman's face to make a connection between the two.

13/11/12-PLANNING

Today we created our plan so that it was neater and the adjusted scenes were added.

In scene 1- Panning across desk

 -Ivory buddha

 -Jewellery

 -Dressing table

Scene 2-Tilt up to view necklace and seeing woman's face

-Ivory necklace

-View from mirror

Scene 3- Close up on box in airport

-Packing peanuts

-Cardboard box

Scene 4- Leaving airport

-stealing ivory

Scene 5- In kitchen

-Radio report about ivory

Scene 6-Reaction shot

Scene 7- Working on Ivory work

-phone call to buyer

Scene 8- Dealing ivory

-Matt and Claire

Scene 9- Cut away shot

-See dealing and someone getting letter

Scene 10- Stranger taking letter

-from behind

-see no face

14/11/12- PLANNING

Today we decided all the places where each scene will be filmed. We decided that:

Scene1)Charlie's house- dressing table

Scene2) Charlie's house- dressing table

Scene3)School

Scene4)Heathrow

Scene5) Charlie's house-kitchen

Scene6) Charlie's house

Scene7) Charlie's house- study

Scene8) Alley in Molsey

Scene9) Alley in Molsey & Charlie's house- dressing table

Scene10) Charlie's house- dressing table

15/11/12- PLANNING

Camera shots/angles

Scene1- Pan right

Scene2-Tilt up

Scene3- Point of view shot

Scene4-Establishing shot- Tracking shot

Scene5-Pan

Scene6-Reaction Shot

Scene7-Establishing shot

Scene8-Mid shot

Scene9-Cut away shot

Scene10- Panning right

20/11/12-CONSTRUCTION

Over the weekend, we visited Heathrow Airport to do some of our filming. We bought a police woman hat, and security labels off eBay. We also got a high visibility jacket from sports direct. When we attached the security labels to the jacket it looked a lot like a police outfit. We did lots of tracking shots, for example we managed to film an aeroplane landing. This left a large space in the sky which would be good for adding titles. We created an establishing shot by panning across the airport. Unfortunately we were not able to film the 'police woman' inside the airport as it can be seen as impersonating a police officer. Instead we went to the Hilton hotel and asked if we could film outside there entrance. This was allowed as long as we didn't get the 'Hilton' logo in the shot.

21/11/12- PLANNING

Today we spent the lesson planning the storyboard and organising it. This made it clearer what was going to happen in each scene.

22/11/12- PLANNING

We spent this lesson planning what was going to happen in the next shot. We discussed the props that would be used and the characters that will have an appearance.

4/12/2012- PLANNING

Today we continued with the completion of our story board and ensured we had all of the props that we will need. Some of the props we did not have and so we ensure someone from the group would go out and purchase it. This kept us all organised and prepared for our filming.

5/12/2012- RESEARCH

Today we looked at The Art of the Title. We looked at how other opening sequences display titles. The openings that we chose to look at were Dream Catcher and Six Feet Under which were both very interesting. From looking at these we came up with the idea of using a glass of water, as it would be effective from the reflection. Another idea we discussed was using a magnifying glass and as someone looks into it, the titles come up.

6/12/2012- RESEARCH

We looked at old students film openings to compare what was positive and negative about them. We also looked at the difference in how the titles were used.

12/12/2012- RESEARCH

Today we looked at the opening of Zen. 

18/12/2012- PLANNING

Today we decided on a name for our production company. Our final decision was 'Amoray Productions'

1/01/2013- PLANNING

We discussed ideas for the picture we may use to for our production company. We though the idea of using a picture of water would be effective.

15/01/2013- PLANNING

Today we focused on our call sheets as they were not complete. We completed the one covering our filming at Heathrow airport.

16/01/2013- PLANNING/RESEARCH
During today's lesson we did planning and research with the use of Scoop It and Pinterest. We looked into different ways of planning our work with a website called New Hive.

17/01/2013- CONSTRUCTION

During our lesson, we filmed a scene for our opening sequence. We had been outside previously looking through the recycling to find a spare cardboard box to use. Whilst looking, we also found an old book which we decided would be very useful. I cut out a circular hole in the centre pages of the book, just deep enough to fit an ivory bracelet. We filmed this scene showing the woman rummaging through the ivory which is stored in the cardboard box. We had the woman dressed in a fluorescent jacket, ivory and a cardboard box in this scene. We ensured that the lights and camera were set up and positioned correctly. This scene was filmed several times to ensure we had it the best we could.

22/01/2012-CONSTRUCTION: IMPORTING OUR MOVIES

We spent this lesson impoting all of our filming onto the computer so we could begin editing. To begin we imported all of the filming before realising that a lot of the best filming was quite dark. We were able to edit the clip to make it brighter and then we were able to cut out excess parts that went over time.

23/01/2013- CONSTRUCTION: IMPORTING ONTO IMOVIE

Today we carried on with the editing that we had worked on yesterday. We were also able to import all of the filming from Heathrow too. We cut out all the unnecessary parts and attempted to put it all together.

29/01/2013-REASEARH: LOOKING AT NEW MEDIA
Today we spent the lesson looking at a newspaper and the latest media. We looked at an app which enables you to scan your phone onto the paper and it comes up on your phone. This newspaper was linked in with the newspaper contain news on ivory.

5/02/2013-EDITING
Today we continued with our editing and began adding effects. We were able to add an effect which showed a flash back of the woman thinking back in time.

6/02/2013- EDITING

We changed some of our previous editing and experimented with adding in different bits of filming which we had previously cut away. We focused on the scene of the letter and added a cut away shot. We then added the black screen at the beginning of the film to show our names and candidate numbers.

13/02/2013-RESEARCH: Looking for music

During this lesson we began looking at the music we would use. We found a website called iStock Music which had a variety of different soundtracks. We searched the words suspense and came across a track called 'Held in Suspense' which worked very well with our opening.

 14/02/2013- CONSTRUCTION: Filming Articles
Today we did some more filming. We laid out some newspaper articles, books and ivory pieces onto a table. We then used a panning short across that shows all of the items
26/02/2013- RESEARCH: Looking for music
We continued our search for a soundtrack that we could used. We discovered that the music we liked on iStock Music cost £32.75 which is extremely expensive for a short piece of music. It was out of our budget so we had to keep looking.

5/03/2013-FILMING AND EDITING
Yesterday we filmed an alley way scene where the police women is dealing ivory to a man called Matthew. We also filmed the scene in the kitchen where there is a radio report about ivory. In today's lesson we imported all of the filming however we were unable to begin editing as we did exam practice during the lesson.

6/03/2013- RESEARCH: Looking for music
We carried on looking for music and we considered spliting the price of the expensive track between us. We decided that if we can't find music which is as good we will have to buy 'Held in Suspense.'

7/03/2013- EDITING
During the lesson today, we carried on editing the filming which is near to completion. In he scene where the police inspector is thinking back, we made it black and white. This made it more clear that there was a change in time. We also added some effects and editing the lighting to create better quality. We then began looking at tutorials on Video Copilot  to help us understand how to make a production company ident.
12/03/2013-RESEARCH: Looking for music
Today we continued looking for music. We want the music to create suspense and work well with our filming. We want the pace to be quite slow, possibly with string instruments. We decided that it would be a mistake to spend so much money on the track so we looked on iTunes, Youtube and other websites to try and find another track.

13/03/2013- RESEARCH: Looking for Music
We continued looking at music again. Whilst looking at different websites we found one called Audio Jungle. We then searched the word suspense. It came up with a track called 'Four Suspense' by Flutist which came with four tracks. It worked well with our filming and so we were considering using it.

  14/03/2013-RESEARCH: Looking for music
  We continued looking for different music, however we ended up deciding we would use the track on Audio Jungle.

19/03/2013- RESEARCH&CONSTRUCTION: Finalising Music and writing voice over

Today we purchased the music 'Four Suspense.' We then did a bit more editing on the film. After this we wrote a voice over which would be the radio report. It said:

 "And tonight we talk about the increase of illegal ivory trade. More and more ivory is coming into the country illegally as people are attempting to sneak ivory into the UK. There has been a horrifying sixty percent of Africas forest elephants killed in the last decade therefore there is now a 15 year sentence if anyone is caught trading ivory." 

The information for this script was found on a YouTube clip of the Discovery Channel.

20/03/2013- CONSTRUCTION: Production Company
Today we worked with After Effects creating our production company ident. We decided that the name of it would be 'atkinson associates' as our original idea of 'ASA' was very plain and boring. We used video copilot to help us, it was very challenged however we managed to create it in the end with some help.

21/03/2013- CONSTRUCTION: Finalising our sequence

Today we watched our sequence several times to look for any problems we could adjust. We had to work on the volume of sound where the voice over took place. It was important to ensure it was loud enough and the music did not block the sound. We used Art Of The Title to choose which titles we would use. We decided on'edited by' 'directed by' and 'produced by.' We then found an appropriate font and placed it into the sequence.