Sound Unit: Photo Edits

Today I went through the photos I have gathered for my sound project. I selected the better ones and edited them ready for the video production stage.

Sound Unit: Picture Time

Today I went out to all the different locations to take the required photos for my sound project. Using the story board as a guideline I took all the photos in my room, parking lot and then went to blue bell hill to take some of the road scene shots.
However, as some of the shots need to be taken at a stadium, I can't until the next home game which is next Saturday so I have decided to postpone those till then.

Sound Unit: Story board

After planning out and Writting down the plot and structure of my story, I have now drawn out a little story board of how the pictures will appear. This will help me when it comes to taking the photos so I know what shots are required.

Sound Unit: Picture planning - Structure

I've now written down the structure plan of how the plot of my story will go. Writting down in sequence what pictures will follow which and also a few sounds that will general go with them.

Sound Unit: Idea Plot

The idea for my sound project is based around the supposedly last day in the life of a young man who seemingly leads a comfortable life.
He wakes up on the morning of his birthday and gets ready for just another day of work at his local teams football stadium in the merchandise store.
His girlfriend has planned an evening meal in a restaurant for him and a few friends.
On his way to work he has an arguement with a lady about parking in front of her driveway which makes him late.
After work, he heads off with his colleague to the birthday meal organised by his girlfriend.
However, on the way they both get carried away while having a car race as a fox gets on the road and causes both to crash.

Story-Telling Unit: Trailer edit

Today I finally concluded the editing of my trailer. YAY! :)
With some constructive feedback from my tutor I made some final adjustments to it.
The clip transitions needed to be more clear-cut and the the fonts needed to look bigger. I also toned down the peaking volume of the soundtrack and completed all the color correction filters for each clip. Here is the finished piece...

Sound Unit: In The Mix

Today at the studios we were briefed about sound production and how different effects can be merged with a totally different visual in order to give a motion picture a more creative effect and feel.
We were then divided into groups of twos and threes and given a film scene without sound in order for us to create a sound piece for it.
I was paired up with Scott Fisher and this is our final piece...

Sound Design Unit: Sound equipment Workshop

Today we were introduced to the different ways of which sound recording for film is undertaken. Experimenting with the camera and sound equipments such as the foam and dead cat, blimp, boom and radio mics. We practised different ways of capturing good quality sound from a range of distances.

Story-Telling Unit: Trailer Edit

After some critical feedback on my trailer, I have been notified about the size of my fonts being too small and some clips being confusing and randomly positioned so today I did some more work on it, selecting the font type and size, adjusting the sound and music and sorting out the clips.  I am now 95% satisfied with the final product so next I will look to polish it up and get some more feedback to find out if there are any more critical points to be improved on.

Work Experience at UCA Rochester – Day Five

SATURDAY 7/04/2012
The final day of the course; the groups prepare for the presentation of their finished products and designs.
They were also briefly tutored on how to photoshop the images from their photo-shoot. Magherita and I went about capturing footage for the edit and I also had to go through the clips for day four and select the required shots for editing.

Work Experience at UCA Rochester – Day Four

THURSDAY 05/04/2012
Day four is the 'Photoshoot day'. Three professional photographers and two internationally professional models have been flown in to model the final products. We set off for two shoots at the Campus Studio and three different off-site location shoots around Chatham; a private car park garage, church grave yard and a public garden in Rochester. Except for the windy blistering cold weather, all the shoots were very much a success.
Now we are set for the last day of the programme which will be a presentation day for the groups to showcase their finished fashion designs on Saturday.

Work Experience at UCA Rochester – Day Three

WEDNESDAY 04/04/2012
Third day for the programme and all the groups have gotten started on their designs and plans including make-up and hair styling. As there wasn't much differing activities occurring today there wasn't as much filming needed so Margherita and I agreed that she carried on filming while I get an head start with working on the footage from the past two days. This meant watching over 400 video clips, selecting the best takes and sorting them into bins ready for editing. Fun? I can't say it was the best but was interesting nonetheless so I enjoyed it. I also starting searching for suitable soundtracks for the video.

Work Experience at UCA Rochester – Day Two

TUESDAY 03/04/2012

Just like the first day, except for A late start at 11am, myself and Margarita went around with the students as they had now been split into groups capturing their different activities including branding and pattern researching, designing and draping.We also did some interviews with the participants explaining what they engaged in and how they felt about the course.

Work Experience at UCA Rochester – Day One

MONDAY 02/04/2012

First day of the fashion taster course filming and it’s an early one beginning at 9am, set to finish at 4.30-5pm. Myself and the assigned film-maker ‘Margherita Gramegna’ (no not some kind of cheese, an Italian lady) set about filming interesting and creative shots of the students as they are lectured on what the week long programme entails. We then followed them around as they went about their activities in the studio and the library.

It’s only the first day but I have gained a better understanding of camera work, handling, shot angles etc.

The main aim is to capture as many interesting clips of the events as possible so that the footage can be edited into a short ‘documentary’ style promo for the Taster programme.

Looking forward to another four days with Margarita.

Work Experience at UCA Rochester

I have been lucky enough to land a work experience opportunity as a filming assistant for a whole week filming at the UCA Rochester on the first week of our Easter break. There will be a four day ‘Creative careers in Fashion’ taster course running at the Rochester campus for young people between the ages of 14-17 from schools all around the South-East. 

It is an absolutely amazing opportunity for young budding fashionista's as they will not only be briefed on the industry practices, but will also be engaged in producing a brand design and garment which will be modeled and photographed by top professionals.

Story-Telling Unit: The Meeting – Trailer Edit

I have now started editing the trailer for my short filmand gladly I must say it is going well; so far so good . 

I will be using a soundtrack that was produced by my younger brother. From the first time I walked in on him producing it, I immediately felt it was perfect for the pace and emotional flow I indeed for my trailer.

I got a couple ofrandom scenes together for the beginning edit to flow with the beginning of the soundtrack and this worked well to give me astarting point. 

I have also been watching a lot of trailers in order to help medevelop ideas of how to structure mine.

Story-Telling Unit: The Meeting – Shot assessments

After calling it a wrap for the film shoot, I took time to go through all the clips in order to make sure I had gotten all the required scenes in the script. I was very content with the overall result. The only scene I wasn’t very happy about was one from the underpass; because I had forgotten to do a white balance, the scene lighting was very red, so haven done white balance for other sections of the same scene, this was very obvious in the clips. So now I’m hoping I’ll be able to adjust this problem during edit. However, thinking about it, I could completely change this underpass scene into a black and white capture as it is all a depiction of a ‘past’ event, which could give it an interesting composition. If this still doesn't turn out right then i'll have to re-shoot the scene as a last ditch option.

Story-Telling Unit: The Meeting – Day Three

WEDNESDAY 28/03/2012

It didn't feel like a good start at all when I found outboth of my camera men were unable to make the shoot today so I wasn’t bestprepared but it wasn’t to put me down as I soldiered on to the scene location atthe underpass with my actors and equipment.

Lighting in the underpass itself was good enough butfilming the entrance scenes were a little tricky as outside the underpassitself was extremely dark. I therefore decided to cut out the scene of Deanwalking towards the underpass and just go straight to him getting in theunderpass.

Also due to not having enough assistance today, I havedecided to cut out the Chris and Gabby characters in my script in order to alsoconcentrate more on the central roles that is Dean, Chloe, Gaz and Sid.

No surprise it was double hard work trying to plan outthe shots as well as direct the actors then do the camera work and act too, but wegot it all done in the end and finally called it a WRAP! 

Story-Telling Unit: The Meeting - Day Two

TUESDAY 27/03/2012

I think it’s safe to say Day two went well as it surely couldn’t have been worse than the chaotic first day. Everything flowed a lot better as planned, although time was a lot more constraint due to sunlight and my actors’ schedules.

We managed to film most if not all of the Car park scenes including the second fight, road and car motion scenes and I even had time to re-shoot one of the riverside scenes that I missed out in day one.

Story-Telling Unit: The Meeting – Shooting Day One

MONDAY 26/03/2012

My initial plan to shoot in a day hasn’t gone as well as I hoped due to unforeseen circumstances. However, I have managed to film most of the riverside scene today but because of the timing and the sun setting, loss of lighting became a problem so I couldn’t film the car park scene.

I have now rescheduled a new shooting plan using all three days I have the camera available to me. I’ve decided that for day two, I’ll concentrate on shooting the ‘Car park scene’ from around 2pm in order to allow enough sun light time for filming before dawn.

Day three will then be for the ‘Underpass scene’ starting around 8pm in the hope that it will be clear at that period.

Story-Telling Unit: The Meeting - Shooting plans

I am now ready to shoot as I have gotten all the actors and locations set for filming.
I booked the camera out for three days but plan to do the shoot in just a day; The Car park and Riverside scenes will be shot from mid-day till dawn while the Underpass scene can be shot later at night as it will be lit up and empty.
Props needed: Fake blood, Tear drops, A pocket knife, Two cars, Camera, Tripod, Sound equipment, and a reflector.

Story-Telling Unit: The Meeting - Scene Locations

I have now gotten the scene locations for my shoot:
A RIVERSIDE BENCH nearby Upnor castle.
A CAR PARK near the riverside.
An UNDERPASS near Maidstone East rail station or Maidstone Town centre.

Story-Telling Unit: The Meeting - Pitch & Synopsis Update

TITLE: THE MEETING

GENRE: Drama/Thriller

PITCH: 'The Meeting' is a Romantic/Drama Short about a couple Dean and Chloe who get caught up in a violent confrontation with two yobs in relation to a brutal attack a few years back.

SYNOPSIS: ‘The Meeting’ is a short film about a confrontation between a male in his mid-twenties Dean Chamberlain, his girlfriend Chloe Richards and two hooligans Gaz Maloney and Sid Graham.

Dean was attacked by Sid and Gaz as he walked past in an underpass. Chloe came along shortly afterwards and seeing him in a state, she helps him out. Shortly afterwards they begin dating and have been together since then.

Years later, it’s their anniversary and Dean decides to take Chloe to the river side bench view where they regularly visited when they first started dating; he intends to propose to her. Dean however, forgets the ring in his car and so when he goes back to get it, he comes across two mobsters hanging around the car park.

He instantly recognises them as the two boys, Gaz and Sid, who inflicted that unforgivably brutal attack on him years ago which has haunted his memories ever since.

Gaz Maloney and Sid Graham who also recognise Dean decide to approach him with intentions none other than to replicate the events of the previous meeting. However, this time Sid is reluctant and more bothered about smoking crack.

Chloe who hears loud noises from the direction of the car park becomes worried about Dean as she has been ever since the attack and decides to go after him only to find him getting beaten up by Gaz.

The whole repeat incident has a major psychological effect on Dean but he tries to fight his inhibitions especially as Chloe is now part of the situation. This causes him to lose his self-control with raging and chaotic consequences.

This is a 5-10 minute short film that touches on dynamic subjects such as ‘bullying’ ‘love’ and ‘redemption’ with a dramatic plot.

THEME: The moral to the story is a reflection on the long-suffering issue of ‘Yob attitudes’ ‘Bullying’ and ‘the notion of combatting one’s predicaments as well as self-control’.

SETTING: A little rural riverside town that stands on the opposite side of the River to a large city shopping complex and office central. A car park.

Story-Telling Unit: The Meeting - Script development

After attending the lighting workshop and consulting my tutor Fergus about the potentials of shooting a night scene, I came to realise that it would very difficult to get a good picture quality due to poor lighting, especially as the night scene in my script is set in a car park which means no source of power supply for electrical appliances. I will now look to re-editing the story so that it works for a day-time or evening scene as this would be the best option.