Rough Idea of Order of shots after changes

Order of story after changes:
Lewis and Simon are chasing each other through the woods, this time we have cut this shorter so we have more time for story.
They reach the end of the woods by the lake, Lewis and Simon Conversation, Simon tells Lewis that his wife is on a train that is about to blow up. Lewis gets angry and shoots Simon. Titles appear during the chase scene shots.
We then see Amy (Wife) on a train, hear ticking noises. See ring on her finger.
We then see a shot of a train blowing up.
Then the title Reconnaissance
If we have time left we then see Lewis walking up to a newspaper, picking it up, looking at the front page then throwing it on the floor.

New and Hopefully Final Script

Simon: Well done, you got me.
Lewis: Pfffft.
Simon: How's the wife?
(Circling each other whilst speaking)
Simon: I believe she is on a train to London
Simon: Am I right?
(Lewis raises gun to Simon)
Simon: What would you say if it, i dunno blew up?
Simon: 9 minutes and counting
Simon: Time is ticking (Ticking Starts) Say goodbye
Lewis: Goodbye(Shoots Simon and starts to run.)

New Opening 2 minutes Film Treatment

We have decided to change our opening two minutes because we think our opening relies too much on the chasing and we also thought that there wasn't enough dialogue in our old idea so we have more added a longer conversation.We now have the chase scene at the start, but we have shortened it considerably from about 90 seconds to 30-40. This means we don't have to rely on the chase scene being good and if the scene isn't good then it would be difficult to see which genre it is. We also think that if the chase goes on for too long then it may become boring for the audience and they may lose interest in the film.After the chase scene the two have a conversation about a train that is planned to be blown up by the new terrorism group that has been set up recently and tells Lewis that his wife is on the certain train which is due to blow up in 9 minutes according to the terrorist. He shoots him and then you see him running towards the train tracks, and a train goes past, then Lewis falls to his knees as the train goes into the distance.It then cuts to Amy (who is playing Lewis' wife) is on the train listening to her iPod, then we have slow, consoling sort of music with the ticking starting quite slow and quiet and then speeds up to a long beep. and goes black.We then put a video of a real train that was on fire and show it as a news report, with a narration over the top explaining what has happened which gives the audience an overview of what they have seen all summarised very quickly and easily for everyone to understand.But at the moment we are unsure weather we are allowed to use a video that we have found on YouTube even if we only use it for 10 seconds, so we have asked and are waiting to find out before we doing any filming and if we aren't allowed we will have to make changes accordingly.

Practice Filming at the location

This is our practice at filming on location.

List of what we are doing when we get to Location

1. We will set up the camera and redo the begginning of the opening sequence (the chase scene) as we have changed there costume. We will walk through the paths and choos the best places to film. We will then film the chase scenes.
2. We will then film the the lake scenes, where Simon will get shot. We will also use the dead rat on the pole (microphone) so we can hear the conversation they have.
3. We will then film the train.
4. Another day we will film the part on the train.

This will give us an idea of what order to film in and help us with time management. Hopefully, we will improve on our filming techniques.

We will also use the footage we got from our first go at filming as a documentary of what the location was like, because of the weather and how we practised with the acting and using the cameras.

Development of Idea

We will be keeping our original idea of the chase scene, as we have looked at them and done some work about them.

The things we will change:

• Costume- Lewis will wear Black Trousers, black coat, black shoes. Simon will wear dark jeans black coat and trainers.
• The ending- We are changing the ending of our opening 2 minutes. We are having Simon getting shot and then going to an image of a train. This will make sense when we redo our Film Treatment of Opening two minutes.
• We will need to change the order of shots and make a new animatic.
• We will also be getting rid of the props. The paper and the bag.
• We will have to work quickly to get back on track.

Ideas for our next attempt at filming and Developing Idea

We will need new ideas to try out on our next attempt at filming, we have stopped the search for possible music at the moment and now need to focus on actually getting good footage rather than getting stuff that needs to be added after sorted now.

During the week they have forecast more bad weather. Which means more muddy paths to try and run along. We will have to see what happens and decided whether we can film this weekend.

Ideas for Sunday:

• We could be abit more creative/dangerous and take a ladder into the woods and rest it on a tree, and do a shot from above looking down on them chasing each other, Or we could find a tree that is climbable and try this that way.
• When we are doing the handheld shots of me behind filming them running, while running myself, to make the camera less shaky we could put the camera on the tripod to try and balance it abit more.

Development of our Idea

We have decided that we would like to develop our idea to make it easier for ourselves. We encountered problems with the costume choice which does not help with realism and also the filming all looking the same.

We have taken in ideas that could improve our filming and will use this in our developed idea.

First Day at Filming

On Sunday we started filming our Media. We got to my house and got the camera, props etc ready and got to our location of filming. As soon as we arrived there we noticed few problems to start with. The floor was very wet and muddy from the snow melting and we were struggling to walk on the paths. We walked backwards through where we are filming from finish to start to check that all of it will be ok to film in. The lake was still quite icy so we decided to have ago at filming just to see what happens. We arrived at the location quite late so we were panicking about it getting too dark very quickly and not being able to film much footage. Most of the paths were quite clear and we made the most out of filming on them. We reached the start of where we are filming and set the camera up and where we would of wanted to position the camera the sun was beaming onto it. We decided we could use the sun as a special effect, when they were running they were disappearing into the sun. We had to decide how fast they were going to run and how much distance they would have between them. Our first shot was next to a road so we had to be careful when filming this. We managed to get some shots of our first section of filming, with people passing by thinking we were weird. We practiced with the camera at different angles and types of shots and how we wanted to film it. We then realised that this was going to be much harder than we had first thought. We wanted to have some shots of me holding the camera running just behind them running to make it shaky and handheld, but we then found that it was too shaky and you could hardly see in a straight line of what was happening. After more struggling running through the mud and it getting darker by the second we wanted to get as much footage as we could, We had ago at filming one of the shots with the props,we chose to film the part were Simon throws his bag in a bush so he can run faster but Lewis picks it up to find out more information, we had to do 3 takes of this as Simon kept throwing the bag in places the audience could not see. At this point of filming we weren't even worrying about sound at the moment, we were just trying to film as much as possible and practice. We then reached the lake scene we had an establishing shot of the lake and Simon and then Lewis running past the camera. This was our most effective and more professional looking shot we had done. We then reached the muddiest part of our filming location. The boys had to chase each other down a muddy path that was going downhill and led to the lake. We had a few practices at this and then filmed. It was very hard for them to not fall over and try and keep it more realistic. After Simon had fallen over in the mud and it would of made the film look weird that one minute he didn't have mud on him and the next he did, we decided to call it a day and see what footage we had. We had nearly 2 minutes of footage (Mostly rubbish). After watching the footage we had, we decided to take notes on what we could improve on our next go at filming,

• Use more different types of shots
• Be more creative with how we could make the shots look even better
• Think about continuity
• Be at the location earlier so we have more time to film with.

Most of our shots we had were very similar and quite repetitive. We also thought that they looked more like teenagers causing trouble than someone who could be a threat to the country. When we go back to the location next week we should be prepared for weather conditions, think about how the weather or things around where when we filmed the week earlier. We should also be prepared with more ideas to improve our shots and maybe bring someone to help carry the equipment so we can get things done quicker so we have more time to film instead of getting the tripod out then putting it back etc.

Props Images

These are some images of the props we are using for our media. We will need a bag as this is part of our media, and a piece of paper. The piece of paper will be thrown into the lake. Look at order of shots in more detail to find out why we are using them

Other props we are using:

• Headset (Ear piece)

These may change

Actors Pictures

These are images of the actors who will be in our opening sequence. They are both in our group so it will be easy to film as we can easily arrange to film it at weekends or after school. As our film is outside of school it is our job as a group to be able to make enough time for our Media Work.
Lewis

Lewis plays the character who is chasing.

He is 6ft 4

He is going to be wearing casual clothes as he is meant to blend in and not stand out and make it obvious that he is the person who is after Simon

Simon

Simon plays the character who is being chased

He is 5ft 2

Simon is going to be wearing casual clothes but they will be slighty darker than Lewis. They will have to be able to run in the clothes they are wearing and be comfortable wearing them.

NEW CHARACTER

Amy

Read the future posts to why Amy is now in the opening sequence.

Snow and annoying problems and Starting to Film

Snow-We were going to start filming over the weekend but because of the weather we could not, the snow would be a problem as our film is a chase scene and it would be very dangerous slipping and sliding everywhere while trying to make it look realistic, also with the lake frozen that will be a problem as we need this. We will wait for the snow to go before we start filming so hopefully we will start after this weekend. Its starting to get lighter now for longer in the evenings which gives us more time to film afterschool or late on weekends.

Problems- So far I think the biggest problem we are having is finding music that will suit our genre and type of film. We would like one that is pretty simple and quite fast and is obviously non copyright, most of the music we are finding sounds very military like or too upbeat. Some also sound quite dancey and thats not how we want it to sound. Our search continues....

We would also like to start filming over the weekend!!!!

Media Work Diary

12 January 2010

Today I listened to the sound effects that we had collected for our film and put them on to Adobe so we could put them on to our blogs. We thought about why they sounded good and if we used them effectively make our opening sequence more realistic.

Sound Effects

These are the sound effects we would like to use for our opening sequence

They are of a gun clicking when reloading and the actual shot from a gun, we would like to play around with them so that we could have one or two clicks and then have Simon saying his part in between the clicks and then the shot. We will have to practice cutting down the sounds on Adobe.

Questionnaire Results

After the results from our questionnaire we found that more males would prefer to watch action films than females. Around 75% Males and 25% females. They also ranged from the ages of 11 to 50. We will make our opening sequence of our film a 12, in our opening sequence it contains slight swearing but cuts of before you hear it so he doesnt really say it,

This is an example of one of our questionnaires with the results on them.

The Matrix Analysis of Film

I have decided to write about the plot of the whole film of an action film. I have chosen the Matrix, it is based around a man who has two personalitities/ two lives. He lives like a normal man by day and goes by the name Thomas A. Anderson, his job is an computer proggrammer but when that job has finished he is a computer hacker and goes by the name Neo. The film is based around him being targeted by the police.
The genre is Science Fiction/ Action.