Filming Progress

Last weekend and on Thursday we manage to get most of our filming done and we had a lot of fun doing it too. It was a bit touch and go because of the unfortunate weather situation but we managed to push on and get a lot of it done. Each of us chipped in with the filming, helping with props and actors and directing. We decided it would be best if we took photo whilst doing it to show you what we did on those days.

Jacob Filming

All of us watching a clip back to see if it was okay.

Melissa Filming

As you can see we spent a great deal of time filming, making sure the lighting is good, angles are correct. We did a numerous amount of shots for each clip so we had some to compared to and get rid of if they weren't quite right. I feel that from doing the filming we each gained a lot of experience and found it very fun to do. Callum Carroll was a fantastic actor a did anything we asked of him and we hope he enjoyed it also. From our animatic we have changed some bits because they didn't look quite right or we were unable to do it but apart from that everything ran smoothly and from doing the bulk of the filming we still have time to re shoot things if needed.

Our Animatic

This is our animatic presentation which our group created. As a group we didn't know much about editing but from this i'm sure your'll agree that we have learnt a great deal and are coming along well, this was done from asking a lot of questions on how to things and trial and error. First we created a new file and uploaded the images onto Adobe Premier Pro and turned them all around so they were the right way up and the right size for what we needed. Then once they were uploaded we then made sure the timings were correct and they were in the right order. We did have a few problems and had to start again but once that was sorted we were back on track and ready to start the transitions. Through our teacher we learnt how to zoom and pan using Adobe and also how to make the titles themselves on a plain black screen and incorporate them into our clip itself. Although it was challenging I really enjoyed working on this and learnt a great amount. From doing the aninmatic we can see now roughly what the final piece will look like and what need to improve in order to make it the best of our ability.  I'm really proud of what we achieved and I hope you can see that we put time and effort into creating this.

Shooting Schedule

So our group is at the point where we are getting ready to film and start to edit our final piece, as a group we have decided on specific dates where we plan on getting most of the filming done. Then if we need to re shoot any scenes we have to time to be able to do this before our final deadline which is 5th of March however we need to be able to show a rough cut of the opening of our Thriller on 15th of February. We don't want to rush what we are doing so we decided to do one of the scenes today (16th January). This scene will be the interview which will take place outside of our school (Chalfonts Community College) where the interviewer will be interviewing the Prime Minister;

Prime Minister; Reece Garside
Interviewer; Millie Warren

We will need to run this shot a couple of times as one of the times the Prime Minister will need to have blood dripping down his face as The teacher (which we will be filming at a later date) is imagining him hurt. Then one with his face normal so we can see that the teacher is definitely imagining it. Unfortunately I was not able to attend this section of filming and neither was Jacob as we had classes to attend, so we left it in the capable hands of  Melissa and Finely to direct.

On Saturday 19th January we will be filming the rest of the scenes which will include the montage sequence. We will need to take Callum Carroll who will be wearing a smart suite and teacher esque clothing. The group will be filming at Jacobs house in Beaconsfield which was very nice of him to let us use it. We will be taking all the props with us and setting up when we get there and all of us will be are attending and we hope to be finished filming by the end of the day.
From there we will put it all together and see what needs to be re done as we have the time to do this we won't need to panic and rush. So hopefully the finished piece of work will be near enough perfect and to best of our ability!.

Political Aspect

When talking to our teacher about our story board it was clear that we had gone down the psychological route instead of Polictical which is not what we wanted, so Melissa decided to go back a step and research further into the codes and conventions of a Political Thriller.

From reading her blog it is clear that we do have to make a few changes in our storyboard for example research what political problems are occuring in the world at the moment and add that into the interview. From here the teacher who wants to assinate the Prime Minister instead of not giving the reason as to why he wants to do this, make it based on what the Prime Minister is giving the interview about. He believes he is trying to help the world by doing this instead is causing more trouble. Not only this but we might add in another character (the teachers wife) and use her as an innocent character so she is drawn in to all the drama.

Thanks to Melissa I now know more about Political codes and conventions and will be sure to add them in when changing around our storyboard and animatics so it is less psychological.

Locations

In the opening there is going to be an interview with the Prime Minister talking to the children about the recession and the government. As a group we decided to go out looking in the school for interesting places to shot this scene.

Reception

We took pictures of three options, this is the first. Right outside of the school with the school logo above where the interview would take place. The place is quite busy, however as it is the main entrance to the school so we could get interupted and is a bit impractical. Therefore based on these reasons we decided against it.

Outside the front entrance

This is our second option you can see the front of the school and the logo from a better angle, but because of the brick wall in front it makes the scenery look very dull and uninteresting. Not only this it is positioned on a main road so would still be quite loud and busy, this could be fixed when editing but because of the uninteresting look about it we also decided against this location.

Art piece

This is our third and final location we looked at, we decided as a group that this was the best one as it look unique yet it is still to do with the school as has the logo right infront of you. With the interviewer and Prime Minister stood in front of it I think it would look much better than the other locations we looked at. Also it is out the way so I don't think we would get interupted as much.


From looking at locations I now know how important scenery and setting is to the the thriller opening and with all the considerations we had to take when choosing it. I believe that the whole group chose this one so it is good that we agreed and are now able to move forward on the project.

Deadlines

We have been given some deadlines in order to complete our final piece;



Storyboards and Animatic Presentations: Tuesday 15th January
All of the filming; Monday 28th January
Post-Production, Rough cut: Friday 15th February 4pm
Final Deadline: Friday 8th March
Individual Evaluations: Friday 29th March 4pm

In order to ensure we meet these deadlines we had to split to roles and responsibilities, by doing this the project will keep moving forward. The roles have been given out;

Melissa and I are doing the animatic
Jacob is going to take pictures of characters, props and setting
Finley is in charge of shot list and shooting schedule.

This is important for the group as it mean we are able to get on with our own stuff instead of relying on each other which we can learn from. This means that we will be able to get the final piece done in a shorter in amount of time.