Research And Planning The Moving Image work

Research and Planning the Moving Image Work

In my research for my short film, I focused on investigating short films that were put on YouTube due to it being a worldwide website that can easily provide me with the opportunity to see a variety of work from different Directors, from amateurs too professionals. YouTube also allows me to have the chance to see comments from viewers which is shown underneath, the Directors work, which enables me to see their honest opinions. My Group and I had a clear goal that we wanted our film to resolve around a deep meaning or a purpose, which we came to the conclusion was stereotypes. Therefore I chose films that I could analyse that could give me this inspiration.

Furthermore, each film had an aspect that I wanted to expand upon and transfer into my film, ‘Elevator’ Directed by Greg Gilenna, who was the director of ‘Meeting the parents’. Elevator really showed how important music can be. The upbeat light song that he used throughout the film gave a comedic feel to the whole set, without any dialogue being used, until a specific important part at the end. This enforces that if we wanted a slow melody song it would give a sad or romantic feel to that particular scene. So from this specific research we established that we were going to use different types of music for each individual character, so that viewers would unconsciously make a judgement of each character before getting to know them as previously said, the basis of our film is stereotypes. To take this process into action our character Edward who is a posh and upper class human being, on his first appearance in the film he is seen getting ready, we had classical music being played in the background. Memories by Radoslaw Siensk, introduced me into the editing format, portraying the different ways you can illustrate a story and make it more captivating and dynamic for an audience. There was a scene in the film where the photographs the main character was holding came to life and showed what happened during that moment of his memories. This was an aspect that I thought would really flow well in our film, to explain the reasons on why ‘Edward’ became poor. So we decided to have a photograph of him and his ex-wife and we are going to use this as a source to begin the story of his past life that viewers have not seen. The desk by Albert Gonzalez, was useful research in demonstrating the different camera movements that can help to create a particular scene. The main character in the short film Peter, had deep and dark emotions that he had no one to express it too, so by the camera tilting down and showing a variety of angles of his face, gave us the opportunity to see the emotion instead of hearing it by dialogue. Thus giving it a bigger impact. The desk also had an editing technique of the words written on the desk by Peter, fading away every time he writes. This was another unique aspect that we wanted to put into the film but we wanted to use this technique for the title of the film ‘Two Blind Eyes’. This would be done by Joseph our happy and vibrant character, whilst his in the bathroom, and the steam from the shower comes up onto the mirror, the words of the title would also come up, except Joseph won’t be able to see this, although the audience will.

Last year during my research and planning for my R&B magazine, I carried out productive research as I managed to look at each part of a few magazines that I was going to try and produce for my own magazine. This included the front covers, contents pages and double page spreads. When looking at front covers of magazine such as Vibe and Billboard, it allowed me to see the importance of the actual photography of the artist and the colour scheme of the whole magazine. The contents pages, informed me on what music magazines actually contain and what their trending top stories were.

Whereas the double page spreads, allowed me to focus me more on the journalism, such as the actual way they conducted their stories to engage and attract their target audience. However even though last year, I knew specifically what I needed to do in my research and what to focus on to make sure that my magazine could actually be seen on magazine shelves. I didn’t look at a wide range of R&B magazines I stayed restricted, I only looked at two of the most popular companies such as ‘Vibe’ and ‘Billboard’. However, I didn’t focus on expanding my knowledge to look at other creative sides of the magazine industry. Furthermore I did a case study on a double page spread that isn’t a music magazine, it’s a lifestyle and gossip magazine called ‘Now’, which isn’t a magazine that would attract my target audience. From last years’ experience on research I have now understood and remained focused on what research can benefit me to make my product the best it can be. So by looking at amateur work as well as professional work helped to see what I can actually do with my budget.

Additionally, during my research of R&B magazines I saw a trend with the colour red noticeably from every magazine. Instead of concluding this into my magazine I chose a different colour such as green, to stand out amongst the others and to be unique. However, I don’t believe that this was a good idea as it made my magazine look like a health and lifestyle magazine. From this I now understand the importance of spotting techniques or particular aspects from films I researched and using it in my film or expanding upon it.

To gain constructive knowledge and feedback for our film idea, my group and I produced a

treatment, that allowed us to pitch our ideas and aims for our film to a group of individuals that were actually within our target age range for the film. To present we used the software Infogram to make the presentation more appealing and interactive, as well as using pictures and diagrams. It contained a profile of our characters, a synopsis, locations where we would be filming and a summary of films that inspired us. The feedback we got from the pitch enabled us to see if there were any changes that needed to be made before we started to producing the film. They thought the concept of the characters having complete different identities from what they had at the beginning to the end was interesting and

showed we stayed focussed with the meaning of the film. They also believed the age range of being in-between 16-21 years was a realistic age range. However they alleged that we still needed to go into more detail of what is actually going to happen during the journey of each character and what are they specifically going to do during the middle of the film. This is where I explained in great detail and stated that there was going to be a scene where all of the characters would be together, so the audience can really see the contrast in characters. Then later on we improved our treatment and went into greater detail so that it would be clear. Furthermore, we recorded the pitch so that we could evaluate it further and make sure we had every point and then we placed it on YouTube, so that people who weren’t present, would be able to see it and place their comments there too. After recording I used spider scriber to design a diagram of mine and my groups’ analysis of our treatment, too make it easier to look back on to make further improvements and changes.

Last year I pitched my magazine proposal on Prezi and went through what my magazine was going to look like, the reasoning of the title and etc. However I didn’t receive as much feedback such as questions and debating as I did this year as I received agreements on my decision, whereas at the time I thought it was solid feedback as I must have done everything right but looking back I would have preferred questions and advice so that the magazine could have been at its best. So for future reference when feeding back to my target audience I will now ask questions based on if they would buy this magazine for themselves and if they would change anything. This would keep them engaged and also help me to receive the best advice I can.

To get actors for our role we hosted auditions within our college. To advertise it we produced a poster that specified what the role would encounter, to make sure that the people that came forward would fit the role and would be passionate and have an idea of what we are looking for. This was a great process as the visualisation that we had for our characters came to life as we got two characters that fit the role perfectly. However, even though we exchanged numbers with the actors and made confirmations on when we were all free. When it came to actually filming our actors they became unreliable by forgetting dates and becoming ill. This then ended up in us having to make a major decision on changing our male character Joseph with someone else that would be more flexible with their days. Even though this was a drastic change, it was a change for the better as we managed to get all of his filming done in a day. The recce was really helpful we had to visit all of our locations and take a picture, which then transferred into a discussion on whether we would have any problems shooting here. For example when we filmed Edwards scene getting ready in the public toilet, we had to ask for permission to use the premises of the restaurant where it was located. When we located the bench scene, we realised from visiting the place that we would have some restrictions from the sound of the traffic as the bench was close to the main road. All the other locations were at our own houses, so we had to focus hugely on lighting. For our costumes we informed our actors clearly of what they needed to wear, which luckily they all had but our actor Joseph didn’t have the specific a shirt that we wanted, so we asked the drama department of our college if they had a shirt that we could borrow for our filming, which they then managed to provide for us. All of the props we provided ourselves so we didn’t need to borrow anything from others however, we only had to buy the Daily Telegraph newspaper on the day of the shooting, as the audience would be able to see the front of the newspaper so they would know if it’s an old or up to date

newspaper and because our film doesn’t focus on the future or the distant past. The risk assessment wasn’t that beneficial for us as our film didn’t require any safety issues that could put us or our actors in danger, but technically still a good aspect to have to make sure that it was clear for actors. We used our call sheets to indicate when and where we would be filming, this really helped the whole group in our communication skills as we all understood what was going to happen and this was shown when we were fully equipped on the day of our shoots. To make sure that this communication stayed during the planning we had team meetings during the middle and ending of the day, to discuss what tasks we had to do or any deadlines that were coming up. We also separated Jobs when it came to our planning so that we could meet the deadline and everyone’s strengths were used to their best advantage.

For the planning of my music magazine I obtained permission slips for using the studio and went through processes of learning how to use the camera. I didn’t conduct as much planning as I did for my filming. When it came to booking the studio, time management was very important as I had to plan ahead, and book weeks before and write down the equipment that I would be using in the studio. This helped me stay focussed in getting on with tasks. When it came to planning with my artist on when she was free this was done by phone calls and text messages to create a date, instead of having the call sheets that we’ve used this year. Hair and makeup and costumes last year was all done by me and the artist which highlights the benefits of working in a group as you’re able to delegate tasks out more and focus more on one specific thing.

In the planning of our short film ‘Two Blind Eyes’ we divided the tasks to make things more productive and easier to do. I focussed in creating the story board making sure that I had each shot that we were going to do, location, diegetic and non-diegetic sound, the shot angle and any dialogue. I also did the call sheet on making sure the days that we were going to be filming. Tashana my group member focused on producing the script making sure that each characters characteristic was shown in that scene as it’s a very important scene and it’s the only time in the film where there is dialogue; she also produced the recce to make sure we had all the locations. Neyha my other group member focused on the risk assessments and props, to make it clear on everything that the characters needed or we needed to make sure everything happen successfully. During our planning process the only problems we have had is due to the actors not being able to shoot or being late but from this we have managed to overcome it by making big decisions on changing the actors, or filming on different days and becoming more flexible.

This year I have improved from last year’s use of technology as I’m using new and wider sources of technology that I haven’t used before to broaden my knowledge. So I’ve begun using Infogram, I used this when presenting my treatment, Spider Scriber, I have been using on my reflections of my team meetings and on the evaluation of my treatment pitch, these have helped to give my blogger a more creative and dynamic look as well as my work. For my research in the case studies I used Prezi a software that I used last year as it’s a good technology to use when you have documents with a large amount of content, making it a lot clearer to read and understand the words.