Monday, 9 May 2011
Sunday, 8 May 2011
Evaluation 3
Our film would always be a hard sell to any potential distributers in the fact that it's a sort of Oxymoron. Romantic Comedies is a genre usually associated with big budgeted productions in Hollywood as opposed to small regionalised independent films. As many of the universal themes that run through our film are shared by the countless cheesy rom-coms made purely to make money over on the other side of the ocean, convincing distributers who seek to support films of artistic value such as The UK Film Council would be as hard as persuading big studios in Hollywood such as Warner Brothers or Miramax to pick up a film that was made on a shoe string budget and isn't exactly another Blair Witch Project.As our film had theoretically been regionally financed by 'Screen South' it meant a large theatrical release would be an unlikely scenario due to the low profile our film would command and therefore are media product might be distributed by an institution that operated with more than one facility.
The works media group is distributer as well as a production company and is responsible for the distribution of Oscar winning documentary Man On Wire, Bend it like Beckham and Shane meadows film Somers town. With fairly restrained budgets, none of these films were intended to reach a large audience but through this distribution company people were able to see these niche independent films.
Saturday, 7 May 2011
Evaluation 1 (Part 1)
They say there’s no such thing as a truly original idea and having gone through the process of creating a media product I’m able to understand what they mean. Every idea for our film opening was influenced or inspired by conventions established in previous media products. Are influences, found during the pre-production planning and research stage varied across genres and forms from Music videos, films and tv shows.
Untitled from daniel finn on Vimeo.
Sunday, 27 February 2011
filming session 1: the party scene first attempt
After completing our storyboards for our opening extended POV shot and having tested and establishing our filming technique for the sequence we felt confident about shooting the scene. Filming a party scene was always going to be difficult, we had the dilemma of whether we wanted to shoot at a real party or whether it would be better to try to gather some people specifically to film the scene. We found problems with both, if we were to film at a real party structuring our shot would prove difficult as because of the nature of the POV it meant people would have to be specifically placed in order for the attention to people gave to the camera was evenly spread out across the walking sequence. Because the POV shot needed to be captured in a continuos shot, several takes would be probably needed because of its complexity and need to get it right which would put a strain on peoples patience especially when they just want to have fun and unwind at a party. On the other hand gathering enough people to create the right conditions and recreate the atmosphere of a party could be a logistical nightmare and hard to justify to those involved who have to give up an evening when its only for a 20 second shot.
In the end we thought that because of the nature of the shot, blurry and slightly jumpy to reflect dream like state, and our filming techniques and equipment we would go for authenticity and film at a real party. George Russell from our group was hosting a house party on Feb 3rd and so we decided we would use this as our opportunity to shoot.
The location was perfect, with a large black door that entered onto the downstairs corridor from which I would be able to move, wearing the headcam, up the stairs located on the right onto a narrow landing and past a few room doors until i turned a corner onto wear Leah (playing the girl) would be positioned ready to lead me into the bedroom at the end and push me onto the bed. The red of the carpet and walls on the stairs and the narrow yet lengthy landing added perfectly to the hazy, overpowering of the senses mise en scene we wanted to create.
The only thing was that we hadn't expected the lack of patience and level of commitment to filming we would need in order to capture the shot the way we wanted. It was a big effort for us to not only round people up for filming after the party had started (we had meant to film earlier but I was unable to get a lift to his house until later) but organise ourselves. Once everyone was in place and we were ready for a take, inevitably there were problems with the camera, first it kept swinging about whenever i moved as we hadn't found tape to hold the sides to the helmet. Then every time we went for a take I found that my nose kept pushing against the buttons on the camera, cutting the footage short.
An example of an early and most successful attempt at capturing the scene.
Having taken a break in filming to find some tape to fix some of the problems mentioned, people where only in the mood for partying and we ourselves just wanted to have a good time and didn't have the will power to try to round everyone up again.
Although ultimately the filming was a failure i think we all learned something about the process of shooting a scene and the traits needed to successfully capture the shots you want. There are always going to be problems whenever you film and you just need to make sure you are as prepared to deal with them as best you can by the work you do before hand and by trying to create the best conditions for filming. I think where we went wrong was not specifically in choosing to film at an actual party but in under preparing slightly in not taking enough test footage using the headcam and making the significant improvements in order so that we could be efficient on the night.
In the end we thought that because of the nature of the shot, blurry and slightly jumpy to reflect dream like state, and our filming techniques and equipment we would go for authenticity and film at a real party. George Russell from our group was hosting a house party on Feb 3rd and so we decided we would use this as our opportunity to shoot.
The location was perfect, with a large black door that entered onto the downstairs corridor from which I would be able to move, wearing the headcam, up the stairs located on the right onto a narrow landing and past a few room doors until i turned a corner onto wear Leah (playing the girl) would be positioned ready to lead me into the bedroom at the end and push me onto the bed. The red of the carpet and walls on the stairs and the narrow yet lengthy landing added perfectly to the hazy, overpowering of the senses mise en scene we wanted to create.
The only thing was that we hadn't expected the lack of patience and level of commitment to filming we would need in order to capture the shot the way we wanted. It was a big effort for us to not only round people up for filming after the party had started (we had meant to film earlier but I was unable to get a lift to his house until later) but organise ourselves. Once everyone was in place and we were ready for a take, inevitably there were problems with the camera, first it kept swinging about whenever i moved as we hadn't found tape to hold the sides to the helmet. Then every time we went for a take I found that my nose kept pushing against the buttons on the camera, cutting the footage short.
An example of an early and most successful attempt at capturing the scene.
Having taken a break in filming to find some tape to fix some of the problems mentioned, people where only in the mood for partying and we ourselves just wanted to have a good time and didn't have the will power to try to round everyone up again.
Although ultimately the filming was a failure i think we all learned something about the process of shooting a scene and the traits needed to successfully capture the shots you want. There are always going to be problems whenever you film and you just need to make sure you are as prepared to deal with them as best you can by the work you do before hand and by trying to create the best conditions for filming. I think where we went wrong was not specifically in choosing to film at an actual party but in under preparing slightly in not taking enough test footage using the headcam and making the significant improvements in order so that we could be efficient on the night.
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