Preliminary Task (Part 3)

Editing

The editing was fairly simple as it was mainly just cutting the clips and adding cuts between them to make it fit well. As a team, we all had a go at using the editing software, Adobe Premier Pro, to cut the clips and add transitions in between them.

Since the majority of the group had never used this program before and had never done editing, this was useful to help us learn how to use the different tools. This knowledge will be carried over to our Thriller project so we will be able to editing very well. By doing the editing, we learnt about the programme and what we will have to do for our real task.

Before this task I had used Adobe After Effects before so I had a little base knowledge with using the program and I learnt Premier Pro quickly. This task helped me to better my skills with these two programs and I am confident I will be able to edit well in the proper task.

Preliminary Task (Part 2)

Filming

The filming process was relatively quick compared to the planning and editing. We found a science room that fit our idea perfectly and we quickly got to work collecting the appropriate props that we needed. Once we had collected everything, we got our scientist actor dressed up in his lab coat and goggles.

We were using the Nikon D3100 to do all the filming and we had a 1.5 M tripod which we attached it too. This tripod was very helpful with getting us high and low shots that were kept steady.

We also used a spotlight with barn shutters to try and give some extra lighting for the scene. In hindsight we didn't need to use this as the room we were in already had very good lighting and the light was just causing unnatural shadows on the actors. The actors we chose were two people from our group; Jake and Heather. They did a good performance and made it very convenient for us.

We did multiple takes from different camera angles to try and give us a variety of options while we were editing. We did over the shoulder shots, shot reverse shots, close ups, establishing shots and moving camera shots. Not all these shots were used in the final edit as they were not all filmed accurately to keep continuity in the scene. We also had to consider the 180° rule to make sure the viewers don't get confused.

There were a few different sections of the filming. We first did a clip of Jake writing an equation on the whiteboard. We used a fixed camera position behind Jake for this so we could see him writing on the board. This was then followed by Heather entering the room and walking towards him. For this shot, we followed behind Heather with the camera being hand held, and once she was in the room we did another shot from inside the room and had her walk up to Jake. We are planning on editing this cut. We filmed an over the shoulder shot from behind Jake as Heather was talking to him. Once Jake explains what he is doing, we did a shot from behind the experiment that is set out on the desk so you can still see Heather and Jake in the back ground. We thought this would be effective in getting the audience to notice the experiment more. The plan for the end of the scene was to have Jake say 'There will be no explosions today' and then we were going to edit an explosion into the film to add a little comedic value to the scene; however I don't think any of us will be able to do this as no one has extensive knowledge on how to use Adobe After Effects.

Once we had finished all our shots, we packed up and went to go do our editing.

Preliminary Task (Part 1)

Planning

The planning started with some brainstorming with my group; Heather, Beth, Jacob and myself.We shared ideas about what we thought the scene should be about and where we would be filming it. After coming up with various ideas we came to the conclusion that doing something about college would be the most effective as we have experience with it. 

We created this mind map of different ideas for the actors, costumes, location, scenario and script that can be seen in the picture on the right. From this we decided we would be using a science room and have an actor playing a science teacher and an actress playing a student.

The dialogue was briefly thought of before the shooting but we asked the actors to use some improvisation to make it feel more natural. Before we concluded that we would use this scene we originally planned on doing a drug scene within the school; however we encountered problems trying to think of an appropriate scenario for this so instead we chose to do a scientific scenario to take advantage of the science labs that our college has.

 After deciding on the scene, we did a more in depth mind map of the scene which is the second image on the right. This had the props and dialogue for the scene. From this we then created a story board which we then showed to the actors so they had a brief idea on how they should be acting. This is the last image on the right side of the screen.

With all this we were ready to do filming.