production diary

Week 1 and 2
In the first couple of weeks of media lessons I established how the blogs worked and come to terms with how to write out my first blog entry. We also looked at the typical conventions for a film opening and how some film openings looked. We looked at production logos, titles, storyboards, different genres, locations, key characters and more.

Week 2 and 3
In weeks 2 and 3 we learned about how genres are used in the first 2 minutes of a film and how it shows to the audience what the genre in the film is. In class we looked at the 'Chicken and the egg' dilemma and this showed us how a specific genre can be identified and shown what that genre is.

Week 3 and 4
In the 3rd and 4th week of our film opening campaign we looked at uses of still image and how you would analyse still images. We looked at the term 'CLAMPS' which is more commonly known as mise en scene. Clamps includes: Costume, lighting, actors, make-up, props and setting. We learned a lot more about camera work than I already knew from year 11 gcse, this included things such as the transitions, and a wider range of shots.

Week 4 and 5
In week 4 and 5 we were shown what a preliminary task is and what it achieves. To complete the preliminary task we had to make a short film opening that met a certain genere and a certain criteria. We were also told about some more camera shots such as: shot/reverse shot, the 180 degree rule. In our film the characters used a lot of facial expressions to show fear and anger so shot/reverse shot was very important in our film.

Week 5 and 6
Weeks 5 and 6 consisted of making another practice task but this time we had to follow a strict storyboard and script. We had to watch the opening clip of the film Juno and then make a precise storyboard following the opening. We then made our Juno film opening and it turned out to be quite accurate. From Juno we learned that following a strict storyboard and script can be very effective and pre planning what to do can be extremely helpful when filming.

Week 6 and 7
In the 7th and 8th week we started shooting our film, my role was being the main actor for our film but also I had to act out another important role in Reagan, Bobby and Denzils group. In both films I was playing a similar role and both were crucial that I stayed in good role the whole time. Before filming we used the research on camera shots and angles to great effect, using a wide range of camera shots and angles made the filming much more interesting and could have made the difference between the audience feeling the tension in the films or not. We looked as severall different venues before we started filming, for my group we decided to film at Tommy's house as the road he lives down is very dark at night and this made it more scarier than if we filmed down a road with street lights. Another reason we decided to film at a house was because filming in a woods would be too much of a typical horror and that we would be playing it safe, we wanted to experiment and have a plan to fall back on. When acting for the other group we had a massive struggle trying to get to the place we wanted to film at. Originally we were going to film at a huge abandoned mental asylum that was based in Warley in Brentwood but the property had been turned into flats. When we got there and found out it was flats we had a look around to see if there was anywhere else worth shooting at, we walked through a woods to find another huge mental asylum but this seemed to have been evacuated or something and untouched. Ripped curtains and smelly hallways made the whole scene look scarier than anywhere else that group could of filmed at and it really enticed the horror film.

Week 8
In week 8 editing commenced. I learned a lot on editing in week 8. This included how to make a film using adobe premier pro, this programme was excellent to use. It has a lot of different things you can use on it to make films more effective. My personal favourite was the razor tool, this enabled me to crop any footage out of the film that didn't look very professional and made our film a lot better than it would of been without that tool.