Media Evaluation

Here is my evaluation

My Final Cut :)

Final Cut is finished!

Today I finished my opening sequence and exported it ready to be shown next weekend to a small audience with the other A level media work.

Last week we got some feedback from our class on our opening sequences. Overall people seemed to like mine however a majority of the people felt that the black screen towards the end was too long.
So after a few tweaks I managed to cut it down to make it shorter, add some extra clips in and shuffled some shots around to make it fit in better. I added in a shot of some wood being chopped which fitted around the shot of the woodchopper. I also had to cut down the music and move the last shot so that the woodchopper chopped on the last beat of the music. This emphasised the ending much more than it did before.

Overall I am pleased with the outcome of my opening sequence. I think it is different to what other people have done and I'm pleased that all the hard work I put into it has payed off.

Finished!

Today i finished my opening sequence. The plan is to get some feedback from everyone to see what they think and if there are any improvements that I can make.
Personally I think that i can improve the title sequence as I feel that it is the weakest aspect of my opening sequence. A part from that I am really happy with how it has turned out.

Using Black and White

For my opening sequence I decided to use black and white. This makes it seem as if it is filmed in the 1940's and also helps to emphasise that the footage is from the past. There are two clips in the sequence as these are in the present day from the girl trying to find out what happened to her mother. The black and white effect makes it seem more artistic and more appropriate to the era.
However, films such as Changeling which is set in the 1920's is in full colour. I am yet undecided whether to keep mine in black and white or to have it into full colour. This is because I wanted to give my film a fairytale feeling to it and made the main character, Marie wear a red dress with red lipstick as the film is set in the woods and she encounters a woodchopper which is much similar to Little Red Riding Hood.
My plan is to do two different rough cuts, one in colour and one in black and white to get some feedback on which one looks better.

Soundtrack

After trawling through Youtube trying to find a piece of instrumental music appropriate for the opening sequence of my film I finally found a track called La Plage by Yann Tiersen.
This is just a piece of plain piano music which fits perfectly into the sequence of my film. As the piece develops it becomes more and more dramatic which fits in with how the opening sequence develops and I purposely edited the clips together so that the more dramatic scenes fit in with the more dramatic music. In addition this also adds a lot of emotion to the sequence and sets the mood and tone of my film.

This is a link to the soundtrack I am using. I posted a comment on the video asking for permission to use the music.

Finally managed to Film

Today I finally manged to film the final shots of my opening sequence. I shot the woodchopper scene and the scene where the baby is left alone in the woods. Im glad that I managed to get it all filmed as I hadn't been able to due to the weather and the snow.
All the filming went really well and I managed to get it all done in the matter of about half an hour. This means that I will be able to fill the gaps in my sequence and complete the editing for a rough cut to get some feedback on.

No filming today.... still snowy in the woods :(

Rough Cut Deadline

Today is the rough cut deadline. unfortunately, I planned to film the remaining scenes last weekend but it snowed so i was unable to as obviously the continuity would be ruined. However, by today I have managed to edit all the footage i have together including a soundtrack and a title sequence.

This is a printscreen of my opening sequence. This is the part where Marie reads the letter from her husband. As you can see there are titles of the actors also.










This is another shot of the letter from a different angle. I wanted to include different shots and angles so that the video was much more interesting to watch. In addition it allows you to see most of what is written on the letter when all the shots are combined.







I plan to film the remaining scenes during the half term and hopefully if the weather permits, i will be able to do this. These shots are the ones that include the woodchopper and where Marie leaves her baby. I also plan to include shots of the woodchopper perhaps watching Marie as she walks through the woods these will include shots of him watching her from behind trees or in the distance. Also, I plan to do a shot where the woodchopper is chopping wood in the distance perhaps on the shot where the baby is left. As this subtly introduces him into the film but so subtly that you may not be aware of him.

More filming...

Today I did some more filming. I Refilmed the letter scene because my original was awful. I used the letter that I got my nan to write for me because her writing is a lot more old fashioned than mine it therefore looked much more realistic for the time my film was set in.
I got my mum to hold the letter and filmed over her shoulder only getting her hands in. I then did some shots zooming into certain words and panning across the letter so that I can create some kind of montage/ overlapping effect of the letter like they do in some films.

Shooting Timetable Re-visited

Date to film	What to film	Comments
Christmas holidays 17th December- 4th January (actress unavailable)	·         Panning shot of the soldier ·         Shot of all the postcards and letters on the table ·         The opening shot of the trees ·         The point of view shot of Marie running	·         Fortunately I managed to get everything I planned to get filmed all filmed in this time window.
Sunday 8th January (actress available)	·         Marie reading the letter ·         Marie walking into the woods with the baby ·         Marie walking out of the woods without the baby ·         Marie running away	·         I managed to get all of this filmed in the time I had planned although I am unhappy with the letter scene.
Wednesday 25th January	·         Re Film the Letter scene	·         I plan to redo the letter scene as I am unhappy with it at the moment
Sunday 29th January	·         Film chopping wood ·         Wood Chopper running ·         The axe ·         Baby left in woods	·         I plan to film all of this on this Sunday. However if I don’t manage to get any/all of it filmed I will film next Sunday.
( If unable to film on Sunday 29th film) Sunday 5th January	See above.	·         This is some contingency time in case I don’t get all the filming done before this.

what I plan to do...

The deadline is in a few weeks time and I still have some filming to do...

Firstly i have decided that because my original footage of the letter scene was absolutely awful, i need to redo it. I plan on getting my nan to write the letter this coming weekend as she had old fashioned curly handwriting which will make it look much more realistic. I can then film the letter myself with an over the shoulder shot where i wouldn't necessarily have to have the actress because you wouldn't be able to see her apart from her hands. This means that i could practically use anyone. So this could be filmed during the week sometime.

I found two pieces of music that may fit into the opening scene of my film. I haven't yet decided which one to use because I'm not sure which one will fit in with the mood and tone of the film without hearing and seeing them both together because i want to make sure that it creates the right ambiance for the audience. The music i have found is by Yann Tiersen. I found it on YouTube after hours of trawling through song after song to find some reasonably appropriate ones. Tonight I plan on emailing him to see if it would be okay to use his music in my production. If not...then I'll have to find some more.

I still need to film the part with the wood chopper and I will hopefully sort some costume out this weekend in order to be able to film next weekend. I have an actor who volunteered to be the wood chopper. All i need to find are some lace up work boots and perhaps some cord trousers. Unless i can get away with doing a shot where you can't see the trousers.. other than that I don't want to show the whole of the wood chopper this early on in the film. One last bit of filming i have left to do is where the baby is left in the shelter. I planned on going to Fritton woods to film this part as I went there once and found a shelter that someone had made which would have been perfect. However i am unable to get there to do any filming and in addition i am not entirely sure that i would be able to find the place again. so instead i plan on building my own little shelter in the woods behind my sisters house which i have been using for most of my production work. I plan on doing this at the weekend so that it is ready to film next weekend so that i am all finished with filming.

Then all i have to do is upload everything onto the computer and complete editing it all together making sure that i focus on the titles and creating some sort of suspense among the audience.

Filming...

Today I did some more production work and I got quite a bit of filming done in about an hour. Today I filmed a majority of my opening scene. Mainly the parts with the woman Marie in. Gladly, my sister volunteered to be Marie so I went round at about 1.30 to ensure that after I had dressed her up it would still be light enough for me to film.
She is good to use in my film as she has the dark brown hair that I wanted and in addition she is readily available at pretty much any time that I want her to be which may not be the case if I use someone I don't know very well. Also, using my sister as the actress will make it easier for me to be able to tell her what to do whereas I may feel less comfortable having to tell someone I don't know very well to do something over and over again untill i get a good shot.
I firstly started off with the hair and make up. I tried my best to create some reverse victory rolls like in the tutorial that I found. I was actually quite difficult to do but after about half an hour of faffing around I managed to create something that resembled a 1940's hair style. I then proceeded to put on some make up which consisted of some black eyeliner, mascara, blusher and red lipstick. I then dressed my sister up in a red patterned knee length dress, a fur coat and some small black heels.
We firstly filmed the part where she reads the letter however I feel that this footage isn't very good as I rushed writing the letter which made it look awful. so I plan on re-doing this part and perhaps creating an overlay of what the letter says over the top of the footage of it. My main aim is to try and find someone with curly writing who will write it for me as it will look much better than my own handwriting.
We then went into the woods to start the filming. I started off with filming the part where she walks through with the baby in her hands. I tried to capture this from many different angles so that I could perhaps create a montage effect. This involved me having to climb up a tree in order to get a view looking down upon her. I wanted this view to look as if someone was watching her from a hidden place.
After that I basically did lots of different shots of her walking through the woods with and without the baby so that I could have some variety of shots to make the opening sequence a lot more interesting than just watching from one perspective. This also means that I will have to do short clips when I edit all the clips together which will hopefully create some suspense in the opening sequence.
I also filmed the part where you see her feet running away. My sister couldn't seem to run in heels in the woods so I decided to do that bit instead with her filming. I actually found that it was quite difficult and actually hurt my ankle a few times...
Overall, I am pleased with the amount of work i managed to get filmed today and I am very pleased with how it went. My sister was very cooperative thankfully which made the whole process a lot easier and quicker.
Now all that I have left to do is the part with the woodchoppper.

Letter home

In the film opening it will feature a letter home from the soldier to his wife so I did some research into what they looked like and how I would recreate one to use in my film. I found this picture;

All I will have to do is find some plain white paper or maybe some off white paper to use and write in curly handwriting. Also perhaps to make it look more realistic I might include a subtle stamp like the one above has. But overall, I think that as long as it has curly writing and a date on it it should look quite realistic.

Filming :)

Today I did some more filming. I went into the woods and filmed some shots of the trees as establishing shots and a point of view shot of 'Marie' running. It took a lot longer than I thought it would to get the right high angled shot of the trees. I originally wanted birds to be flying about too but unfortunately there weren't any flying about today so nevermind. Fortunately it was quite sunny and I managed to get quite a bit done but I still seem to have a lot to do.