Filming Day

On Friday 20th November, our group set out at around 9.30am into Ware town to begin filming our opening scene. Our original intention was to film it all in one day, however ambitious we thought it was. The reason for this is this was one of the rare days that all members were available to shoot, and if we chose any other day we’d be at least one member short.

We had worries about the weather, it was a cloudy day and it had been forecasted for heavy rain. But we planned to just film until the rain came, if it ever did. So we started off with the costumes, which we put together ourselves and changed into on the high street. Sophie and I styled the boys hair, makeup and additional features needed. This took about 10 minutes, then we were ready to film our first shot, which was one down the high street. We had our storyboard at hand to monitor what shots we were doing etc. It started off relatively well, we were making quick decisions on what shots to do and doing a couple of takes of each shot to make sure we could pick the best of a bunch.

All in all I can’t complain about the filming, our team worked really well together, and although getting off to a bit of a slow start we were soon in the swing of things and filming at a quick pace; we were way ahead of schedule. The main issue we come across really was the general public, which to be honest we had expected. We were filming in a busy high street in comedy costumes, and we were expecting some sorts of reactions. Some people found it funny; others thought we were doing it to annoy people; but whatever they thought we just tried not to let it get to us as we were there to do our project.

Another issue regarding the public is that there were times where we needed them there, and times where we just didn’t – but this of course was beyond our control. Sometimes people would walk into shots that we didn’t want them to, therefore had to film them again (such as the ‘x-factor’ style shots). But then there were times where Sophie and I stepped in as extras because we felt we need people in there to make it seem a little more ‘realistic’.

To summarise, filming was a success. We thought we would be filming all day, but in fact we were finished by around midday. Our team got on very well and we were able to have a laugh as well as do a pretty sound job. I think the fact that we all got on so well and contributed more or less equally to the filming helped us finish so quickly. There is still a bit of filming left to do but this isn’t of actors, only of baby photographs and dance posters. We are currently on track of our project, and hopefully won’t fall behind if we carry on how we are working at the moment.

Anamatic Feedback

The quality of our anamatic overall is quite good. The pictures (drawn by Perry) are of a good quality and there is a lot of detail regarding the camera angles, lengths of the shots and locations etc.

The main criticism of our anamatic was the length of it; it is around 7 minutes long and that is far too long. We need to reduce the length to around 2 – 2 and a half minutes to make it give a better idea of the length of shots.

Outline of Film Production

Our film is of a comedy genre, and is based on a story of young man who has a passion for dance. This man believes he is the best disco dancer in town, and is sure to win the annual dance competition this year, like he has for the previous three or four. But the thing is he isn’t the best dancer by far, he is in fact terrible; however, his over the top personality adds a lot to his character to make him win. This year though, there’s a new kid in town; a young, Latino dancer who specialises in Latin American Dancing. He too, is entering the dancing competition. The film basically follows the ups and down of the two rivalling dancers to build up of the big day, it is done in a comical way though as the tone of the film is not too much of a serious one.

The intended audience is young adults, as they are people more open to this idea of humour. Our team consists of me, Sophie, Perry and Sam. Perry and Sam are acting in the opening, Perry playing the disco dancer and Sam playing the Latino American dancer. I and Sophie are doing the majority of the camera work, as well as minor parts to make the scene’s feel more realistic. We will all contribute with the editing process, maybe taking different roles depending on our strengths and weaknesses.

Evaluation of the Prelimary Exercise

Our group of three produced a two minute film of someone entering a room, walking across it and then sitting down to have a conversation with somebody else. We had to use both match-on-action and shot-reverse shot.

We initially filmed our scenes mainly outside, we were happy with all our shots and positioning but when it came round to editing we found that the sound quality was poor and the sound of the wind was the predominant sound of the whole film. Taking all this in mind we made a joint decision to re-film the footage inside so that we could actually hear the conversation.

We filmed this and found that all in all our shots were all steady and in focus, and mainly framed using the rule of thirds – except our camera was perhaps a little lower down. The eye-line match was generally correct which is essential when using shot-reverse shot. Our subjects were well lit, as the room we filmed in were bright. However, there was a slightly dark overshadow on the face of one of our characters; this in fact makes the face chiaroscuro which fits in with the characters personality, however it was unintentionally done and the reason we got this result was because that particular shot was back lit.

Our match-on-action worked very well, and it flowed correctly to give the impression it was all done in one take. Our editing was tight and that meant we didn’t have any jump cuts with our shots. Our shot-reverse shot was very successful but there wasn’t a lot of it in our footage, we probably could of added more. The pace is good, it is quick moving without being too rushed and our transactions were invisible. I am satisfied with the editing decisions because like I said we made ours quite tight, therefore I wouldn’t change any.

The sound on our second attempt of the scene was much better quality; there was no background noise to drown out the sound of our dialogue. When watching it you can hear what is being said and understand the conversation.

Our lighting is of good quality except perhaps for the blind that back lights the scene when focused on one character. The background and setting isn’t as appropriate as it could be due to the nature of the conversation in the scene, however our original choice of benches outside was perfect but due to the sound quality we had to settle for something inside the building.

Our prliminary exercise video