Evaluation

After hours and hours of looking at our short film on the screen, I had been starting to worry that it wasn’t looking as good as I wanted it too. After seeing it during our screening today on the big screen, I was really pleased with the outcome. Although we kept our storyline very simple, we spent hours and hours of our own time, making sure everything was cut at just the right time, making sure the audio was all on the same level and just cleaning up the final piece in general. Overall I would say our film met our original criteria we set out at the beginning of the year. Before I had pitched the idea of doing something similar to the 3 minute wonders, I originally had a vision that our short film would include students from the fashion department as I thought it would be something very contemporary and up to date. I would say that the course our actors study is the only major change that happened over the course of the 2 months we had to film. I personally think that this worked out for the better as the students we chose all studied on the same campus as us and TV class, which made getting in contact with them all very easy. After discussing what kind of students we wanted to use in our project, ease of access played a big role in which we were going to choose. Although I personally knew fashion students around my halls of residence, it proved a lot harder than expected to try and find a time where we would both be free to shoot the interviews. Fashion has a very heavy work load to it to which we almost found it unfair to add any more work to their daily lives. As far as roles went, none of us really ended up with our designated roles by the end of it. To begin with we only had 2 members of the group which we had given designated roles to each other, when we was introduced with a third member, we had to split the roles up even more which made things a little harder to manage. We had a few hiccups along the way with one member of our group letting us down a few times by not turning up on more than one occasion but thankfully when we was altogether, everything seemed to get done. As a whole, I would say our short movie was successful. A few things I would have changed would have been to have a more detailed story bored as during the editing process, I found we lacked shots that would have finished each of the student’s stories off nicely. Another thing I would take into consideration next time would be that at the end of the day our film is what matters and we should not be too worried about taking up people’s time. I felt very conscious whenever I needed to film someone and whether they felt like we were taking up too much of their time; hence why we went for a simple story line so that we could make the most out of it during the editing process. Despite the issues we faced, our group put together a piece that exceed original expectations.

Nearly There...

This week we have all been in and out of university, editing and filming and touching up anything else we need to. So far we have cut down all of the interviews to the answers we wanted to keep, and cut them into separate interludes so that we can just slot them in once we add the more recent footage from today. The only footage we need to add in is of Angelia working which Kimberley filmed. Harriet and I have dedicated all of Tuesday to finish off the last bit of editing and sorting the audio as well as finding a suitable piece of background music. I am really pleased with how the short film is coming together. It has worked out that all of us haven’t taken on our original designated roles and have more or less taken on each role as a group but it seems to have worked really well. Kimberley took care of the filming of Angelia, Harriet took care of the filming for Tobi, and I took care of filming Charlotte. Each of us has ended up creating our own mini projects but making sure we stick to the same editing scheme and using the exact same titles throughout so it looks like one final piece. We have also edited 1 interviewees interview footage each which has saved us a lot of time when we have been working on more than one computer and transporting the files across.

Filming!!!

Today we have the whole group together, the green room is rented out, we have a camera and an SD card and we are ready to film! Before we got started we decided who was going to go down first. Tobi was the first to be interviewed and she set it off really well and gave the others a good idea of what their interview would look like too. Second was Charlotte, third was Angelia, and before we knew it, we had finished filming the interviews. We also found we had more footage than we intended, which is better than not having enough and having to go back and film more again. To make sure we didn’t lose anything we backed it up on Kimberley’s memory stick as soon as we got back from filming. That took a lot longer than expected but at last we have some footage that is ready to edit. We have 2 weeks until the final screening, so Harriet is dedicating Monday to film Tobi in the dance studios rehearsing and Thursday I will be videoing Charlotte whilst she is getting on with some work. All in all we’ve had a very productive day and I am really pleased with how the footage looks. We used 2 cameras to film, one face on and one from the side so that we can interchange shots throughout the interviews. We will have to edit as we go along which we will take it in turns to do.

A Small Delay

So today, Harriet and I come in to class expecting Kimberley to turn up too so that we can get on with filming (earlier on this week, we had arranged to meet up and get started on filming as we all know editing takes a lot longer than expected) when Harriet gets a text to say that Kimberley isn’t coming in today as she doesn’t feel too good. Unfortunately these things happen but foolishly we left a lot of responsibility on Kimberley. Kimberley was the one who said she would bring in a form of memory storage big enough to hold footage onto as Harriet and I left all of our things like that at home in Norfolk, so today no filming was undertaken which was a bit of a waste of a day. To make the most out of the time we had spare, Harriet and I went over the questions with our interviewees so they knew what to expect on the day. Next week we will definitely be filming whether Kimberley is here or not as I am going home this weekend therefor I can collect my hard drive to store footage onto. Although this a minor setback, it has also taught us to always have a back up plan.

First Group Get Together

This week, Harriet, Kimberley and I got to work as a group together for the very first time. Kimberley has explained to us what she feels comfortable with doing and where she thinks her strengths and weaknesses are. Today we set out roles for the group as well as completing a treatment form. Kimberley will be the behind the camera for the majority, Harriet will play a big part in editing and I will be producing and directing the short film. When each of us feels as though the time is right, we will take over each other’s roles so that everyone can experience a different view of behind the scenes. A short script of questions that we will be asking the interviewees is currently a working progress. Although we didn't finish the list of questions today, we have made a good start for what we can use. The questions are being thought out carefully as we don’t want any to sound too similar, also we are still unsure as to whether we want the questions to be heard or not. As of now we have not set out any specific days to film. First of all we still have to find people to star in our short film, as well as hoping that they agree to participate. We have decided to try and find a person each and a backup, so that we already have a bit of knowledge about what kind of questions to ask them that will gain a good response.

Introducing Our Actors

Today, Kimberley, Harriet and I all came together to pitch our chosen subjects for the documentary. I have chosen Charlotte who is in our TV class as well as my English class. Charlotte and I both live at Clayhilll halls of residence so it will be easy enough for us to get hold of each other. Harriet has chosen Tobi who is also in our TV class but does it combined with dance. Tobi commutes from London. Kimberley has Chosen her friend Angelia. Angelia is an exchange student from Australia and studies creative writing as well as illustration. We have also decided to focus on a specific subject area for each person rather than their whole course to make it a little bit easier on coming up with the questions. For Charlotte we will be focusing on the TV aspect, for Tobi, Dance, and for Angelia, Illustration. All of these are very creative subjects which is what we wanted. As well as filming the interviewees face on, we also want to overlap with footage of them doing what they would do in a regular days work. We are hoping to film most of the footage at the University itself. For the interviews, we will be renting out the green room and using a white screen as the background to get that professional look to it. Luckily 2 of our actors are in our class so it should be ok to use them during the 3 hours’ time we have on a Thursday.

Chosen Pitch

Harriet and I have made a decision on what we have decided to film for our final TV project. We have taken the documentary route and have taken inspiration from the 3 minute wonders produced by channel 4. What we are hoping to produce by the end of it is 3 short documentaries, on 3 students at Kingston University, giving a short story as to why they chose their course and what they are enjoying about university itself. Today we also had Kimberley join our group. Kimberley was previously in a group with 3 other people but asked to join us as she liked our idea and thought she would be able to help us out. Having an extra person means we can be a bit more creative and that we can hopefully move things along a lot quicker. We have discussed in more detail to Kimberley what we would like the finished product to look like so hopefully she has a good idea in mind too. As Harriet and I have worked with each other before and know what each other are capable of; having a new member of the group might cause some problems but it could also work out to be better in the long run. We have exchanged contact details and will hopefully put together a story board next week. As Kimberley commutes to uni every day, we have to make the most out of the time together.

Our Ideas

Today Harriet and I pitched our ideas what we have been coming up with over the past week. One of our ideas has derived from the popular channel 4 programme, come dine with me. Come dine with me is where a group of strangers are invited to each others house where they each take it in turns to cook for the rest of them at their own house. We was thinking we could get a group of friends together and show them all enjoying a night in cooking with each other, not necessarily in a competitive way but more of a tutorial. Cooking channels and tutorials have become more and more popular on the social media platform, YouTube, so it would appeal to a large audience. One of our other ideas was to recreate famous film scenes, for example, Titanic and the ‘don’t let go Jack’ scene, Dirty Dancing; ‘I carried a watermelon?’ but take on a more modern view of them. This one we are the most unsure on as we would need to find a lot of people of are confident enough to act and pull it off well. Our final idea is to take the concept of the 3 minute wonders but use students from the university to talk about their selves, their course and the university itself. We are edging towards this idea the most as we have something to relate it too and we both have links with students from different courses to show a range of personalities.

Training With The Camera

This week we had our first encounter with the cameras we will be using to shoot our film. Not only did we get to play around with them we were also taught how to use them properly, for example, what settings to film on, what we can do on the camera itself and where to find the rental room etc. Although I have worked with cameras before it was good to get a more in depth talk on the cameras to help get my confidence back again with using them. A lot of the stuff I have written down as I know I will forget it later on. We have also been set the task of producing a short 60 second film including match on action shots all the way throughout. I think this is a good idea to start us of with as like me, it had been a while since many of us used a proper camera. I don’t yet have an idea as to what I am going to film but I’m sure I will come up with one soon. I am looking forward to using the cameras and getting started on filming once I have come up with a few more ideas.

The Beginning

As part of our graded coursework, we have been asked to produce a short movie/documentary with an idea of our own. I have previously worked behind and in front of the camera for school and college assessed work so I am hoping the task comes naturally. Next week we will be pitching a few ideas and then narrowing it down to one by the end of the week after that. So far I have a few ideas in mind it is just working out what is the most feasible in the time and surroundings we have available. As we will be working in groups, I will be working with my friend Harriet who also attended the same school and college as myself. We both know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and can hopefully play them to each other’s advantage. We have watched a few short clips to give us some inspiration to go away with so hopefully we will have a couple of ideas to pitch by next week. I like the 3 minute wonders we viewed, they don’t require too much equipment and we wouldn’t necessarily need to find ‘actors’. As part of our research we will continue to review the 3 minute wonders and gain a better idea of how we could put something together using the same concept. Also, being only the two of us, we should not take on more than we can handle. We also took a look at how the green screen worked today which gave us an idea of how creative we can be.