28/11/15: Production Company Design
In class we were given the task to design our production company's logo and decide how it would appear within the opening sequence of our film. After investigating many films between the three of us that are categorized as Gritty Realism we decided that we wanted to create a logo that would be easily identified as British. We then began listing the stereotypes that the british have been given so that we could generate inspiration for our logo. We eventually decided that 'Cup of Tea Productions' was suitable and immensely relevant to the genre of Gritty Realism. Dottie, being the best artist in our group, began sketching our ideas onto paper.
Once we felt we'd completed the previous task we began brainstorming titles for our film where were considered names such as Parallels, Sane and Mirrored. These all fitted well with our narrative but we favoured 'Sane' due to it contrasting with the mind of our protagonist and showing the conflict he experiences within himself.
On the thirtieth of November, after college, Beth and I walked into Sidmouth to purchase a mirror that we planned to use for the title sequence which will display our film name "Sane". Despite Dottie not being able to attend we managed to take expository shots of Sidmouth's landscape which we captured from Peak Hill. In addition to this we also took test shots to see what time in the evening would be best to take shots and how the lighting would affect the atmosphere we plan to create so that we would not be wasting our actors' time the day after if the lighting was too poor to film.
01/12/15: Filming
In the evening Beth, Dottie and myself met Chris and Pascal on Sidmouth seafront and we commenced filming. We filmed the first storyboard sheet and referred to it constantly to ensure we would stay on task. The filming went well but took much longer than expected due to external factors, such as traffic, which we had to avoid to ensure the sound was not of poor quality. To help aid the narrative we also filmed extra shots that we believed would help our audience understand the action.
04/12/15: First Editing Session of Filming Material
On the 4th we began viewing all the material we had gathered throughout our previous two filming sessions and began deleting and saving the different shots depending on their quality and potential use. After viewing all of the acquired content as a group we chose which shots we would like the introduce our film. Despite having many shots that we thought were suitable we could not use all of them due to them being filmed at different times within the evening which made the beginning of our film lack continuity. We therefore chose to keep the shot from peak hill and the shot on the seafront of the public walking from a medium shot to a long shot.
09/12/15: Editing of Logo
During our lesson our group decided that our scanned hand-drawn image of the teacup was not up to a suitable standard for our opening sequence and that the quality would lessen the overall aesthetics of our film and so we used programmes such as Powerpoint and Serif Photoshop to try and make the background of the image transparent but we still weren't pleased with the results.
After school Dottie and I attended a Soundtrack Workshop with Mr Hickman, a music teacher within the College, who taught us how to create atmosphere within our opening sequences using sound. Within the session we created a suitable sequence of chords to match the lyrics which we also wrote. The session was very beneficial to us as it enabled us to follow the conventions of the gritty realism genre by creating our own soundtrack.
15/12/15: Editing the First Draft
We spent a few hours putting together a sequence of shots that would flow well together and form the basis of our entire opening sequence. Despite only acquiring half the shots we needed by this time it laid the foundations for the film which would make it easier once we had filmed the rest of the shots within the next week or so. We added in our production company logo which we were still not happy with but knew it would help us see where improvement was necessary.
At lunch Beth and I also went and re-recorded our soundtrack with Mr Hickman but were soon interrupted by the school bell. However, it gave us some material to overlay upon our opening sequence's first draft so that we could get an overall idea of what filming then had to be completed.
Within our lesson we presented our first draft to our Media class who then initiated a group citique. We recorded this so that we could make the improvements that they suggested as well as evaluating the strengths of our work.
09/12/15: Editing of Logo
During our lesson our group decided that our scanned hand-drawn image of the teacup was not up to a suitable standard for our opening sequence and that the quality would lessen the overall aesthetics of our film and so we used programmes such as Powerpoint and Serif Photoshop to try and make the background of the image transparent but we still weren't pleased with the results.
After school Dottie and I attended a Soundtrack Workshop with Mr Hickman, a music teacher within the College, who taught us how to create atmosphere within our opening sequences using sound. Within the session we created a suitable sequence of chords to match the lyrics which we also wrote. The session was very beneficial to us as it enabled us to follow the conventions of the gritty realism genre by creating our own soundtrack.
11/12/15: Logo
On the 11th we begun using 'Adobe Illustrator' in hope that it would produce a better logo that would not become pixelated when enlarged. This was important for us because we wanted our film to be viewed as professional so that our audience would focus on the moral of the narrative as it is many films within the gritty realism genre intention to address social issues faced within Britain.
15/12/15: Editing the First Draft
We spent a few hours putting together a sequence of shots that would flow well together and form the basis of our entire opening sequence. Despite only acquiring half the shots we needed by this time it laid the foundations for the film which would make it easier once we had filmed the rest of the shots within the next week or so. We added in our production company logo which we were still not happy with but knew it would help us see where improvement was necessary.
At lunch Beth and I also went and re-recorded our soundtrack with Mr Hickman but were soon interrupted by the school bell. However, it gave us some material to overlay upon our opening sequence's first draft so that we could get an overall idea of what filming then had to be completed.
Within our lesson we presented our first draft to our Media class who then initiated a group citique. We recorded this so that we could make the improvements that they suggested as well as evaluating the strengths of our work.
02/01/16-03/01/16: Filming With A New Actor
Being aware of a deadline for our second draft to be presented arriving soon we took the opportunity to film within the Christmas holidays as Chris was experiencing a family bereavement and couldn't film the previous week. Our actor, Pascal, who played the role of Chris#2 was too busy to film during the holidays and so we decided to refilm our material but with Alex now playing the role of Chris#2. Having already filmed many of the shots it gave us the opportunity to take on board the improvements suggested by our peers and refilm using our new actor. Chris and Alex worked well together and we managed to stay overnight at Dottie's house so that we could film early the next morning so that all our filming content could be collected knowing that Beth and I could film the film's title the next day.
04/01/15: Title Sequence
Beth and I took the mirror into a local wooded area and filmed the mirror being smashed by a rock. We etched our film's title, 'Sane', into the mirror so that it would introduce our opening sequence. We liked this idea because it would show how Chris' reality is broken due to his illness whilst the film's title shows the insanity he experiences. We then spent time within the Christmas holidays editing our shots together to create our opening sequence.
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