Year 12 NEA blog: 2019

Thursday, 7 November 2019

Coursework Film Idea

Final Idea Concept
For my final idea I have decided I want to create a psychological horror, depicting the tragedy of a death of a child and the guilt that consumes the main character whom is at fault. I did not want the concept of my horror to be too cliche, I wanted it to be more abstract and metaphorical. I have visualised my character to be a teenage boy, and the scene opens with him playing a video game and being distracted whilst he is meant to be babysitting a small child. The little boy wanders off and climbs up a chair to reach a toy and gets the string of a blind caught around his neck, he falls off the chair and tragically accidentally hangs himself, this moment coincides with the older boy losing the video game. I have chosen this freak accident because it can happen with small children and is quite shocking and distressing to audiences. As the older boy walks around the house to find the little boy he witnesses what has happened and it is then that the character faces two choices - he either calls 999 and gets help or runs away in fear he will be blamed. I will initially show the character getting help by calling 999 and create a montage showing the little boy being rushed to hospital and being saved, the little boy will live and the main character will be seen as a hero, as audiences we are satisfied with this happy end, at the moment the scene climaxes I will cut back to the choices. The audience will then realise that the scenes that have just been shown never happened, it was a false end, and the true end will be that the character is consumed with guilt and will run away. The character then goes on a path of destruction, making mistakes over and over, I will create a chaotic series of scenes to demonstrate this, this will end in the character dying, we realise that the small child died all along and this leads the main character to his death, it is ironic, bleak and tragic and leaves the audience feeling uncomfortable and perhaps a little distressed.

Actors chosen for Characters
I have decided that I will have one of my younger brothers play the role of the young child. I have two brothers aged 5 and 4, but have decided I will use the four year old because he is more natural in front of the camera because he isn't always aware he is being filmed and he will seem more vulnerable because he is much smaller. I will have to spend a lot of time directing him and making sure he doesn't try and show off in front of the camera which will be difficult. I won't need any specific costume for him as I want it to seem naturalistic and realistic so he will wear his own clothes, I have considered doing a single take/shot of his lips and making them blue with makeup to suggest the idea to audiences that he is losing oxygen and is very much dying. I think he looks innocent enough that audiences will form an emotional connection to his character.

Story Board

Friday, 4 October 2019

Responses to my Presentation

Responses to my presentation - I somewhat disagree with most of my comments because they all contradict each other, an example being that I have 'no original ideas' and yet 'too many ideas'. I think they misunderstood my pitch, which could have been because I was too unclear with my ideas but I disagree with the visuals not being as important as the story line, it is a five minute piece and so I will struggle to build character development in five minutes to a point where an audience feels a connection to the character or for me to create a detailed, elaborate plot. I also think in most short films you don't see this, it has to be short and straight to the point, and the exam board recommends little narrative so I don't think writing an elaborate script is worth doing, although I will write a rough script. I have a clear vision in my head which I struggle to describe to others which is something I need to work on.

Friday, 20 September 2019

A remake of a short film called 'Script'

Evaluation

After watching a collection of short films, I decided to remake the one minute short film 'Script' created by Ben Ledsham. I thought I could make certain improvements to this film, and I think in some ways I have whilst in others the original is better. I think the lighting and colours in the original were better because the original had dim, mood lighting that added to the atmosphere. Our remake had bright lights and colours which didn't add a lot to the atmosphere or make the scene seem more menacing and tense. However, I think the music used in the remake built a lot more tension a lot quicker, whereas, in the original the music gives the scene a lot more of a sombre feel.

Friday, 5 July 2019

Special Effects Editing - An Independent Study

Special Effects Editing - Attempt Four

For this edit, I wanted to experiment with the green screen and see how effective it was in special effects. I made Caitlin stand in front of a green screen whilst I filmed her, I then put the footage in premiere pro and used the key colour tool to replace the green with any photo of my choice. I also had to crop parts so the rest of the wall behind the green screen was not visible. The only thing I would do differently is to make sure the green screen is completely flat and there aren't too many shadows on it, as this affects how the edit looks as you can see the texture of the green screen material.

Special Effects Editing - An Independent Study

Special Effects Editing - Attempt Three

For this editing technique I wanted to experiment with fast forwarding footage of Caitlin walking back and fourth in the classroom, to do this I used the razor tool to cut a section of the footage and then used the Rate Stretch tool to speed up a section of footage, whilst keeping the rest of the footage the same speed.

Tuesday, 2 July 2019

Special Effects Editing - An Independent Study

Special Effects Editing - Attempt Two

I took a short video of an area of the Sixth form, and then selected the ultra key, I then got another photo of a galaxy and layered it below my footage and scaled it to fit the sky, I also lowered the transparency.

Monday, 1 July 2019

Special Effects Editing - An Independent Study

Special Effects Editing - Attempt One

I experimented with this effect to try and make William look bigger, like a giant, on the stage.
To do this I took one clip of the empty stage and another clip of William inside a box, I layered the clip of William on top of the stage clip. I then selected effects and started to crop the clip of William, this meant that the box looked like the inside of the stage. Although, because I only used the crop tool there were still edges of the box you could see and it isn't completely realistic. Although, this helped me experiment with the technique.

Tuesday, 18 June 2019

Todorov's Model of Narrative Development

Wednesday, 22 May 2019

Stimulus short film evaluation (uncomplete)

Stimulus short film final video (uncomplete)

Stimulus short film script / plot synopsis (uncomplete)

Stimulus short film storyboards (uncomplete)

Images of Stimulus task images + questions + mindmap (uncomplete)

Love Actually Evaluation

The challenges I faced during filming is that I started filming too late in the day so the lighting was relatively dark, the house itself was also dark, in future I would be selective in where I film in relation to how dark the room was. If the lighting was improved, the character expressions would be a lot clearer and the mise en scene would be stronger, the scene itself would have been more aesthetically pleasing if the colour and light wasn't so dark. I also struggled to get the actors to all work together without skipping lines or laughing, I think this is a common problem with filming more than two people who aren't all necessarily good at acting. The camera I was using also ran out and the second half of the film had to be filmed on a phone, as a result there is a noticeable difference in light and camera quality between the clips. I also think there could be more variety in angles, and although I did try to do this in filming, I couldn't use half the clips because there was talking in the background or the lines were messed up. I do however think a strength of this scene is that I filmed in a location other than school, and had a range of people to be part of it. I also think that Charles, playing the prime minister, was a good actor and fit the role very well, being consistent in delivering his lines.

I used a lot of over the shoulder shots as I thought this was effective in showing the interactions and dialogue between characters, the focus of this scene in the film and in my recreation was the Prime minister being introduced to the staff, specifically to Natalie as that scene set up the plot line for their love story. I tried to switch between over shoulder shots to show characters responses although this was not successful because a lot of footage was unusable due to background noise and actors making mistakes.

There is only sound in the scene is diegetic as I did not add sound because I didn't think it would add much to the scene as the dialogue was the focus of the scene. I think the sound recorded fairly clearly although in the second half of the film it was a lot quieter noticeably, although not quiet enough that I remembered to increase audio gain. If I had used the same camera throughout the audio and quality would have been more consistent.
I didn't changed too much to the setting, the opening of the scene was outside the house like the original although I did not change much as I couldn't recreate ten downing street. I then transitioned from outside the house to inside. I positioned the actors alongside the staircase as I thought this made them look the most like servants and the house is fairly big so I thought the setting was appropriate, especially more appropriate than if I filmed it at school. I also decided to make them all wear the same hat so I could create some kind of uniform or to show they were all working for the same person. Although, I do think their outfits could be smarter and definitely could be more lighting in the setting. Additionally, I noticed that I had missed two lines at the end of the scene, although this didn't matter too much, this meant I missed out a scene where the Prime Minister sits in his office and this is a better close to the scene then the last line being from Natalie as it foreshadows their future relationship.