Embedded Files
For the last week before the half term break, I had a lot of work in production to do, seeing as I’ve prioritised my research over the filming process itself. This weekend saw rehearsals ramp up with my Shrek filming at RGS since they have just over a month until the production. Rather than producing a singular documentary as part of that project, I now intend of creating a 10 episode series as this is the type of content people watch in todays world. The episodes should be roughly 15-20 minutes to keep the audience as we have shorter attention spans. This will accompany a film recording of the show that will be released on Vimeo rather than physically due to my costings and ease of distribution. If the project works, I should earn from the distribution and have a larger breadth of work going forward.
Over Monday through Wednesday, I worked on finalising my shot list and drew up a storyboard to accompany. The storyboard is a direct breakdown of the shot types to paint a picture to my cinematographer. This week was about making sure I had equipment, crew and locations for my Unit 12 shoot. I confirmed with RGS that I could attend their music concert on Thursday as planned to capture shots of the musicians to use during the montage of my film. In return, they asked that I also shared the footage and any photos with them for promotional purposes in future. I will edit them a promo of the event to distribute. For the main ‘music room’ aspect of my project, I discovered, thanks to helping Jacob’s project, that one of the drama studios wasn’t in use on Fridays so intended on using Friday afternoon to film the majority of my piece.
In Fahmida’s lesson on Tuesday, we looked at the poster and trailer for The Zone Of Interest to have a discussion about context through promotion and branding. Being one of the few people who had already seen the film, I didn’t interject too often when people were guessing what the colour schemes, framing and mood of the poster represented. It was interesting hearing everyones interpretations and how close some people got. This developed into a discussion about the subject matter of the holocaust and its representation in Zone of Interest and Schindler’s List to compare.
Following this, in the afternoon, unexpectedly, our crew was asked to return to the performing arts classes to film a few more scenes. This time, we worked with the Level 2 class doing simple dialogue scenes to give them camera experience and a record of their performance. This time, we simplified to a 2 camera set up with two takes per scene to get wide and close up shots to cut between. In hindsight, I believe we should’ve used 3 cameras and shot once through so the scene would lineup in editing. However, we didn’t have the third camera available as we were unaware it was needed. I aim to edit these scenes and those from last week over half term but my project takes priority. This filming meant I wasn’t in George’s tutorial lesson but we gained good experience and I hope so did the actors.
I stayed in college for the afternoon in the edit suite to begin work on that project before I had an interview for the Level 4 Pinewood Production Manager course which went well. She told me how the course would work and offered me a conditional offer to work with them next year which is a great opportunity to have in the bag. My priority is still with BBC in the unlikely event I make it in.
Wednesday saw me continuing storyboard work ahead of my filming over the next two days. Attila showed as part of the film Good Will Hunting to discuss as a class after. As well as this, I worked on a review of Whiplash for my youtube page which is one of the films I’ve been studying for this assignment so it works both ways. I completed my video on Thursday to distribute on Friday as usual.
Thursday evening, as planned, I filmed at RGS for my project. I borrowed a tele lens from Ben that also fits my camera which was unplanned originally but was very useful in getting the close ups I was after while being out of the public eye during the performance. I was able to get into the stage wings and various points around the audience to get my shots and was very pleased with the result. I have many wide shots of full bands, close ups of brass, percussion and wind instruments and audience shots that can all be useful in my montage.
Friday afternoon was my primary filming day. I helped Jacob with his in the morning as an actor for a short time and then took the studio after him. Although I planned well with equipment, securing Ben and Korben to film as I would act in it for musical directing ease and bringing the instrument, I didn’t consider my costume in relation to the backdrop. I wore a black t shirt to a black curtained studio but luckily I used a white t shirt in Jacob’s film that he allowed me to borrow which was lucky. In future, I need to fully consider colour disparity in a location. The shoot overall was a success in my eyes as Korben and Ben fully understood my vision I talked them through and the types of shots drawn on the story board. For more information about this, I summarise my key learning points in my Unit 12 evaluation.
The following week was half term, which had a drastically different outcome than my original plan as I hadn’t factored in other filming days freelance and meeting people. As a result, I was only able to edit my unit 12 and haven’t touched the performing arts content. My priority was my own project as I have an upcoming deadline so getting Unit 12 completed was important. However, this now means I’m ahead of schedule with unit 12 almost complete so I can spend time in college during the week to edit elsewhere.
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