Finally Finished!!!

The Hangover project is finally complete! My groups video will be uploaded shortly.

Thankfully, we have finally finished our project and managed to complete it by the deadline too. But only just!

What have i learnt from this experience?

I have learnt that it takes a lot of time to get the shots right. When filming a scene you need to make sure you've got it from the right angle, that there isn't anything that shouldn't be in the background, that everything is in the right place and that the actors say/do the right things and repeating shots over and over again to get different angles and to make it perfect. Not to mention making sure there isn't any out of place background noise and this all takes so much time. In your plan you need to allow for this time incase something goes wrong, idealy planning to have a finished cut a couple of days before the deadline.
Also, editing it all together takes so much time too. It can be extremely frustrating sometimes when something doesn't do what you want it to do as we found out in this project. However, now we are much more familiar with the software, hopefully next time we will be able to use it better.
Doing this project, we faced many problems. Problems such as:

• finding enough/any actors
• finding the right props
• finding the time for us all to do it together.

It was so difficult to find people to be in the film. It literally got down to the last minute before someone said yes in the case of the character Phil and for the Bride. However we did have a back up plan- one of us could do it. But we thought it would look much less effective if we did that. Finding props was quite difficult too, finding props that looked the same was very difficult so we had to settle for props that looked relitively like the ones on the film. But overall, i think we did a very good job with that. Also, finding a time for us all to be able to help out was extremely difficult. We all had different timetables and we all had different commitments but we managed to find one day for us all to participate to get most of the filming done.
Overall, I really enjoyed doing this project. I had a lot of fun whilst making it and learnt a lot about working in a group, the editing software and how much time it takes just to make a 2 minute opening of a film. I think it has taught me a lot to keep in mind when creating my own opening which will hopefully help me to think of a good, achievable idea and help me to avoid the problems we faced when making our version of 'The Hangover'

The Hangover Project Part 2

Today Park Farm kindly allowed us to use one of their very nice hotel rooms to film the majority of our Hangover opening scene in. Thankfully, at the last minute my friend Vicki said she would stand in and play the role of the bride and Caitlin brought along her parents to play the mother and father of the bride.

Lizzie getting the camera angle right for the wedding dress shot.

The filming went very well and we managed to get it all done in a couple of hours however, we did come across a few problems with lighting but we felt that we would be able to deal with that in the editing stages.

This was the frame that we had the most issues to do with lighting. We pulled the blinds down eventually because of the light streaming through the window which seemed to make the shot a lot more clearer but obviously made it more darker but we decided that we would be able to brighten it up in post production.

Everybody in postion for the full shot.

We had to move the room around to make it look more similar to the setting in the actual film. Using the DVD of the Hangover, we managed to resemble the set to a fashion using what we could get our hands on.
 




We also made sure that the characters had similar costumes. Here, the mother has an orange jumper and a scarf round her neck like in the film.

Caitlin's mum stepping in to be the mother of the bride

The mother of the bride from 'The Hangover'



Overall, i think the filming went very well today and look forward to editing it all together.

My Idea!

I want to create a film opening that will be different and unusual compared to anyone elses. I want my work to stand out, so i thought that by doing a film in the style of a 1940's/50s film it might just do that.

Immediately i can think of some problems with this idea;

• Costume
• location
• background noise/ scenery that would be out of place

however, with the idea i have in mind, i think i can get round these problems.

• Costume- by hunting around in charity shops i'm sure i could find something suitable and similar fashions of the 40's are back in the shops now which is useful.
• location and noise- The main location i want to use is a wood. This means there shouldn't be any background scenery that would be out of place. The only problem would be the road nearby which you might be able to hear in the woods but hopefully not.

Relationships between characters and audience

The opening few minutes of a film are important in building relationships between the audience and characters. We looked at the beginning of American beauty to see what we could discover about the main character, Lester Burnham in the first few minutes.

• He never says anything positive about himself. He has a negative attitude- a pessimist.
• Doesn't speak with much emotion which tells us he's perhaps a boring kind of person, he's tired and deflated.
• He's distanced from his family. He doesn't really seem to fit in.
• His wife is the dominant character in the house. we can see this because; Lester sits in the back of the car, doesn't drive, obeys her orders etc. Which is unusual as the man is conventionally in charge.
• He lives in a typical neighbourhood where every house looks the same, all the roads look the same and all the trees look the same. This highlights how boring his life is.
• Lester is never in natural light. He's always in the shadows. For example in the scene where he's in bed, he's on the side drowned in shadows, he sits in the corner of the room in the dark and wears dark, plain colours. This highlights how he blends into the background and isn't really noticed by people- they don't really care about him. Whereas his wife is always in the light, making her the centre of attention, she's bubbly and happy.

You can learn all of this about 1 character in the first few minutes of a film because of the mise-en-scene. The lighting, colours, positioning and body language all tell you so much about a character.

A level media work

This is an example of an A level media piece. We rated it out of 10 on; originality, performance, creativity, professionalism and intrigue. Looking at other A level work allowed us to see what things work well, what things don't work well and what to bare in mind when we are doing our own.


The Abduction

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzsoU254zBU

Originality: 5/10
Performance: 7/10
Creativity: 5/10
Professionalim: 7/10
Intrigue: 6/10

Overall: 30/50

I think this is a really good piece of work in terms of professionalism as in my opinion the beginning is excellent. The student effectively used titling to make it look professional and i really like the opening shot of the water and the boy walking across the bridge with other clips of him merged over the top. I thought it was really effective, especially with the music which fitted in well. However, i don't think it was a very original piece of work as there are lots of films and tv programmes about people getting kidnapped/ abducted. But, on the other hand, i think the performance was extremely good also. The only let down were the press reporters, they don't seem to be the right age to be reporters and they were using their own cameras and video cameras. But this is understandable because it's a students work and they obviously wouldn't be expected to have cameras with huge lenses and tv cameras and also, it is quite difficult to get other people to participate in your work. But other than that i think the performance was very good and the fact that the student used an older man in it made it much more effective in my view. Overall, i really liked this piece and it did make me want to find out what happened but i think with the kind of film it is, it would be too predictable.

The Hangover Project Part 1

Today, Georgie, Caitlin and Alice went to Georgie's uncles farm to film the car scene where Phil tells Tracey that they have lost Doug. To start off with we had a problem with finding an actor to play Phil, but eventually we found one at the last minute. The filming lasted a couple of hours and it seemed to go relatively well which myself, Lizzie and Lily will edit and put together next lesson.
On sunday we plan to film the remaining scenes at Park Farm. At the moment we don't have a definite actor to play the character of Tracey, but if we haven't found one by the day, one of us could always do it. The scenes we plan to film are of the wedding venue, the setting out of the wedding, Tracey's part of the phone conversation and the scene where she is in her room with her bridesmaids, mother and father.

what we need for that session of filming:

• wedding dress
• mannequin
• flowers
• Tracey
• Bridesmaids x 3
• Father
• Mother
• White dressing gown
• jogging bottoms and t-shirts for the bridesmaids
• bridesmaids dresses

The Hangover Project

We were given the task of recreating the opening sequence of The Hangover. We got into groups of 6 and gathered some ideas together and talked about how we were going to tackle the task. We watched the film a number of times to get some ideas, to think about who could be the characters, to look at camera angles and shots and to look at what props we would need.

•  We knew the task will involve doing replica shots of the film so we decided to take pictures of the different shots we would have to replicate so we could see what we had to do. This would also ensure that we had exact replicas of the most important shots such as the scene where Phil is on the phone telling Tracey that they had lost Doug.

This is a list of the props that we think we'll need:

• wedding dress
• bridesmaid dresses x 3
• flowers
• mirror
• car- trashed
• sunglasses
• white dressing gown
• black suit trousers
• white shirts
• cake

Venues: We thought about some local venues that were similar to that of the film. We decided to look further into a venue in Old Buckingham and Park Farm to see if it was possible for us to film parts involving the setting out of chairs for the wedding. We decided to look at these venues because we thought that they would be equipped for a wedding function and that we would hopefully be able to use.

Characters:

• Phil - we want someone who looks similar to him so that they would be recognisable as the character  Phil, but that is not entirely necessary as the costumes and props will help to identify him.
• Tracey- again, we want somebody that looks similar to her, preferably with long brown hair as this is one of her main characteristics.
• Bridesmaids x 3- the bridesmaids can be any random girls as they dont have a big part in the opening scene and have no lines. They are just milling about in the background.
• Hair Dresser- again this person doesn't have to resemble the hairdresser as you only really see their arm in a shot where they are brushing Tracey's hair. However you do see a full shot of the hairdresser in the background but this is an insignificant part of the story.
• Brides Father-this person doesn't necessarily have to resemble the actor who played his character in the film. A man who is evidently older than the actor who plays Tracey would be fine as he would easily be identified as her father.
• Brides Mother- again, similarly to the brides father, all we need is an older woman.
• Men in the background of the car scene x3- like the bridesmaids, these people can be anyone as they are not the main focus of the shot and have no lines or major importance in that particular part of the scene.
• people setting out the wedding- again, these people can just be random people as they have no lines and are of no major importance in the film.

Rule of Thirds

The rule of thirds has been used for many years and not just for film and photography. Renaissance painters noticed that the human eye doesn't just rest on the centre of the picture, it also scans the edges, so the rule of thirds came about. It aims to put the subject of the photo/ film off centre to create a sense of balance so that  the viewers eyes are drawn to the subject.

The main thing to keep in mind when thinking about positioning is the rule of thirds. This makes your shots much more interesting to keep the audience interested in your film.

The most noticeable part are the intersections so it is best to place the subject  or something of interest such as a prop at one of these 4 points.

Usually a central shot is quite boring and plain but some break this rule of not using the central square if it works for what they are doing. For Example, on reality tv when they are interviewing the participants.

In shots of people, their eyes are usually on the line 1/3rd of the way down. this allows for head room and doesn't cut off bits of the person. But, again, this is not set in stone and many people break this barrier.

The rule of thirds can create emphasis on the horizon line and what is above or below it. If you want to emphasis something above the horizon then you should make the horizon line stay in the lower third of the shot and vice- versa if you want to emphasis something on land.

The postition of a character or object within a frame can tell you a lot about their characteristics or importance. For example, if a character is placed in the foreground of a shot, we know that they are more important or more dominant than characters in the background of a shot. likewise with an object, if you have an important prop which hints at where the plot could go you should position it at one of the intersections so that the audiece is drawn towards it.

Positioning is very important within a film and can tell you a lot about characters, props, settings and where the plot could go.