Continuity Issues to resolve in the back up shoot

Arrangement of clothing on the floor: 
-To overcome this will take pictures of the floor that clearly show the positioning of everything on the floor of the set.

Position and Arrangement of Props:
-Again photography will be extremely useful in remembering the exact placing of these props.

 
Position of Blanket and pillows on the bed:
-We will set a position on our actress' body where the blanket will be pulled down to in one of the early shots and ensure that it is always at that length.
-In regards to the  pillows, we will have a set arrangement for them and take a picture after each moment in the scene where the pillow is required to be moved, so that we can use it as a reference point.

 Ensure no production equipment is in shot:
-Store any extra equipment i.e. camera bags, chargers, lighting filters off of set in the corridor outside of the room used for filming.
-Have a set location for the lighting for each shot and if lighting does need to be moved for the shot, then the new positioning is as such that the lighting kit cannot be seen in frame.

Timing and order for placing beer bottles/cans in the bin:
-We will set a memorable phrase which clearly indicates what is picked up in which order e.g. BCBB       (B- Bottle C-Can)
- Have a set time between placing one object in the bin and picking up another of 1-2 seconds.

Don’t interfere with the setting:
Especially during breaks, instead move to another room to take breaks so that we can ensure nothing is moved from its original positioning.

Ensure door is open in all shots required:

-Set a predetermined position for where the door will be opened to and place a marker so that we know instantly if the positioning of the door is incorrect.

Leave any equipment on the floor in a part of the set which is never seen.

Ensure the lighting for the corridor is maintained throughout the shoot. (Best to set up lighting beforehand)

Make sure the characters move in the same way in match on action shots.

The shot when Alex's head rests against the door needs to be flipped or the entire shot revised so as not to break the 180 Degree rule.

Main Shoot: Reflections

Our main shoot happened on Monday 17th February 2014. We started setting up at 9:00am. Since we were at a new location we had to block the location and plan how we would set up the lighting and equipment.

We had to make setups that would be fairly stable and also equally light the scenes that we filmed. The two diagrams show a rough layout of the room.

Our mise en Scene

When we arranged the mise-en-scene we took multiple photos of the props as they would be moved during filming and also get moved when people walk through. Although we took photos the props ended up moving.

We forgot the light the doorway when we were filming which created discontinuity as Alex is later pushed into a lit corridor.

  

Main Shoot: Storyboard and Shootboard

We made a storyboard and shoot board in preparation for our main shoot at our new location.

Storyboard for Mainshoot Sample

We adapted our storyboard to the rough edit of the test shoot sequence incorporating additional feedback and reflections into our new storyboard.

Shootboard for mainshoot sample with visual representation from the animatic

We tried to structure our shootboard as much as we could based on setups. This was difficult as we hadn't been in the room that we are going to film in.
If the setups don't match up well, we will shoot in order of the storyboard so there will be continuity of the drama.

Test Shoot and Edit Reflections

We had a test shoot in order to test out different practicalities of the shoot such as lighting props and blocking. Our edit enabled us to test the durations and the narrative that we conveyed through our shots.

Student Reflections

• The way Alex grips Jess in shot 21 seems too violent for the situation. Instead we plan on having him approach her by her shoulders and then for her to push him out of the room.


• Setting up lighting for the beginning dark shots was difficult as the lighting was too bright initially. We then had to use many filters to get our preferred lighting. However the footage was very blurry when we came to editing it. Therefore, we will now film these scenes in naturalistic lighting that appears very clear and then grade it down to our desired effect.


• Another problem with the lighting was that the gels merged into each other so they were damaged easily.


• We struggled to position the equipment suitably so the equipment wouldn't appear in shot as the space in the room was small. There is a possibility that we may shoot in another location. 

Staff Reflections

• They suggested for us to shoot master shots that we could refer to if our shots did not fit as well as we imagined it to have.


• We should also include more cutaways to increase the pace of the narrative.


• When we edit shots together we should edit it so the shot starts when the actors are moving. Since we had some shots that started with the actor standing still ready for the shot to start.


• Mise-en-scene looks like a room of a busy teenage girl, instead of a depressed teenage girl.

What we plan to do:

• During the next shoot, we will film the master shots so when we come to editing we would be able to use it as a backup and maybe cutaway to it.


• We took the advice about the cutaway and improved out first test shoot edit by making more cutaways and therefore increasing the pace.


• When we next edit our shots, we would have the master shots so if an actor is static at the beginning of the shot, we could cut to the master shot of them as a back-up.


• As for the mise-en-scene, we plan to redress the whole room to give connotations of a depressed teenage girl. We would get rid of the student books and maybe have ripped pieces of paper from her diary or a pile of used tissues that the main character has used to wipe her tears.

Test Shoot: Storyboard and Shootboard

Call Sheet

Before the test shoot, we had to plan ahead  by making shootboard, storyboard and we made sure we booked our actors for the test shoot.
Since this film is both of their acting debut the test shoot will introduce them to the routine of the shoot.
This will allow them to rehearse their characters in front of the camera. It will also help us understand how our characters are depicted by our actors and we will be able to determine the strengths and weaknesses of our script so far.

Test Shootboard

We created our shootboard according to priority of casting and set ups so the actors could rest when they weren't in the scene.The set ups were also categorised because the room is small and camera equipment needs to be moved around carefully to  make sure it doesn't appear in our footage.

Pre-production: Costume research

Costume:

We had Alice Soulard try on her pyjamas to be able to choose which clothes will work best for our character, Jess. We want Jess's mood to be upset and frustrated. We want her to have an unwashed stale look.

We had Alice take pictures of the different clothes so we could trial them on her. 

We had Anthony take pictures of different outfits that fit Alex's character

Out of the costumes we thought the black pyjama top and grey pyjama bottoms suited our character the best. This seems to resemble the pyjamas of a 19 year old. The colour black is usually worn in mourning so thus relates to her going through depression after her boyfriend's death. We thought the others were too colourful to reflect the emotions of Jess.


Costume References:

Silver Linings Playbook (2012):  Tiffany wears black throughout most of the film. She has been impacted by the death of her husband.



We decided that we wanted Anthony, who plays Alex, to wear casual clothes since he is ready for university and is optimistic about life. We thought that his T-shirt should be pastel coloured to contrast the dark clothes that Jess wears.
In the end we asked him to wear his un-patterned green T-shirt and black trousers. The plain nature of the T-shirt doesn't pull too much attention from the audience and it resembles how simple and jovial he can be.


Costume References:
This is Adam from Now is Good (2012). He wears casual clothing and is generally more optimistic in the film. His role as the love interest is similar to our character of Alex as they care deeply about the respective female leads deeply.

Planning our post-production: Integrating Titles

Our titles will have no interaction with the sequence, we want to keep everything simplistic because of the nature of our film and the conventions associated with our chosen drama.

-The titles will be very stylised and simple so that they are noticeable, but not distracting.

- Their placing will be around the edges of the screen and in corners where possible.


- The main title will follow a similar style to the production titles, however it will be central on the screen and be much more noticeable. We want the audience to see the main title and be inquisitive in regards to the meaning behind the title.

- The colour chosen for our production titles: because of the purple colour of the walls of our location we felt that much darker colors blended into the wall and could not be seen; while light colours like yellow and bright green didn't suit our film and just looked out of place.


-We made the titles fade in, so it would not suddenly appear and distract the audience from the main focus.




Reference:

Our main inspiration for our sequence is "Struck By Lightning" which has titles that are plain white and non-intrusive. The film "Struck By Lightning" has some very dark themes and similarly because of this keeps everything else simple.

Pre-production: The Main Title

What a mess

We were unsure how we wanted to use typography to brand our film so we set about researching fonts that we could use for our title. We wanted to keep the shaping of the letters simple. We also wanted to create the neat graphic with solidly filled letters.

Castorgate Distort

Rough Rider

Reference: Remember Me (2010)

Reference: One day (2011)

Noir-Et Blanc

 We chose the font called "Noir-Et Blanc" since the letters are stretched. We thought that this represents the theme of reaching out and being helped up. It also fits in with titles that inspired us such as Remember Me and One day. The difference would be that our title is in mixed cases. It still fits in as it is a bold white colour that stands out but also doesn't detract from the scene.

Animatic Reflections

An Animatic is basically a sequence of photographs that represent each planned shot, all put together with any planned sound effects. Each photography is shown for the planned duration of the shot it represents.

We made an Animatic so that we were able to get a general idea about where the camera will be placed for each shot, as well as being able to make adjustments to a shot i.e. framing and composition if it doesn't look quite right. Since we did shot the pictures for our Animatic at the first designated location, we were able to get a sense of how we were going to film the shots.

After we made our animatic, we looked over it with criticisms that are listed below:

Student Reflections

While we were shooting and editing our animatic, we realised that there were certain issues that arose including:

- Continuity errors:

• In some shots, the bed was left empty. To rectify this, we will ensure that Jess is always in the bed where appropriate.
• There were various issues in regards to Mise-En Scene. E.g. Posters on back wall constantly falling; "Monster Energy" cans stacked against wall fell over repeatedly
• The 2 lighting set-ups must be kept consistent, especially in scenes when using low key lighting. To enable this to be consistent we will use a lighting kit provided by the school.
• The alarm clock needs to be set to the right time each and every time we shoot the close ups of it (the clock) at the start.

- Mise-En Scene:

• Be mindful of large mirror on wall, to avoid reflections of crew members and equipment.
• Suitable lighting needed so that actors are visible in low key lighting.
• Certain props are missing and therefore are not in

Staff Reflections

-Titles:

• There should be consistency in how the titles are sequenced.

- Scripting

• The intonation used in some of the lines does not quite fit the scenes mood, this is due to all of the dialogue being added in at a later date as a voice over and will not be a problem when filming the sequence.

- Composition:

• There should be more shot diversity
• There should be more cutaways

One major piece of feedback that we were given from staff is that there is a lack of movement in our sequence. This is mainly due to the limitations of an animatic's static nature and is hard to fix unless there are a variety of transitions between separate shots.


These are all things which will be taken into account when we move on to the film opening's construction.