Progress Report - 18/03/10

At this stage, we are well into the production stage of our coursework. The group's main priority during class sessions is to work on completeing both the trailer and the radio advert, however at this stage we have yet to start working on our radio piece.

In terms of our film trailer, we have completed the pre-production, as well as the production, and are into the post-production stage. We filmed our piece over two days - 11th and 12th of March. I think this went really well, and that we all worked well together as a team. Each of us took on our roles, and because we stuck to them, we completed filming on schedule and ensured we had every shot we needed, with several takes of each, working with the storyboards and the script to make sure everything was as we had planned it to be. One issue we did have during filming was lighting levels. We found it difficult to get the lighting levels that we had hoped for, and so had to improvise by using a torch to reach the lighting we wanted. Although this was a solution, we did find it hard to try and make our set look like it wasn't torch lit, and that the light was being sourced from somewhere else. Although this was the case, from watching back the footage we have, I think that the lighitng levels turned out ok, and do make our trailer look effective, if not a little dark.

Because we have included several tracking shots within our trailer, we had to find ways to create these without making the camera look as though it was hand held. In the courtyard scene, we used a wheelchair in order to do this, with Tom pushing myself in the wheelchair, and Rowan overseeing things. As well as this, we are also including a tracking shot in the last sequence of our film, with the camera and the male protagonist both running towards each other. To achieve this shot we used the same concept as the shot in the courtyard, using a computer chair.

Throughout the filming stage, we also took production stills, as well as stills for the other aspects of our coursework. By taking this time for both filming and production stills (4-5hours in total)we made sure that we has several takes of each shot to make sure we had a choice of which one to use when it came to the editing stage. After filming on each day, we made sure that we took time as a group to go over the footage we had taken to make sure that everything was how we wanted it, and that if there were any problems we could think of ways to rectify them.

At the moment, we are in the editing stage with our trailer. We are getting to grips with using Adobe Premier, a new programme which we have never used before. Although Tom is the editor within the group, we are all taking an active role in deciding which takes should be used, and also any other decision such as when we should cut each shot. When we were capturing our footage, we made sure we logged each shot, and gave it a number. When it came to then putting together our rough cut, it was much easier to find the shots and assemble them into the right order.

As we are editing the trailer, we are tying out the different effects that we think would work well with our chosen genre, and will make the trailer look effective. For example, we chose to put our CCTV shots into black and white, and use red text in the bottom right corner saying "Recording" to make it look more realistic and effective. We have also decided to use white noise in several places to make the transition between the CCTV shots more professional. With the CCTV shot of our female protagonist in the library, we have chosen to to use visual white noise as well as the sound to show that she has disappeared. This helps to build tension because the audience will want to know how and why she has disappeared, thus wanting to go and watch the film. To show that the CCTV shots are changing, we also made it look as though the frames were fuzzy as they were changing. In order to do this, I took a still frame of the CCTV shot that we wanted to change to and in Photoshop put a filter on it to make it look fuzzy and misplaced. We then put these stills infront of the CCTV shots we were changing for a split second to to make it look as though the channel was changing. Another effect we used was the grain effect. We used this on the last shot where the female protagonist is answering a question that she asked early in the trailer. We decided to put a grain as well as the "Recording" text in red on this frame to make it look realistic because the whole idea of the film is that the two protagonists are making a documentary around their college. The grain makes the quality of the image look lower and so this is realistic because it is what the audience would exoect a sort of 'home movie' to look like. The "Recording" text in the corner of the frame helps to add to this effect.

Instead of using diegetic sound within our trailer, we will be using a voice over which we have pre-recorded in the radio studio with our actress. When producing this element of our trailer, we again all took on our specific roles to make sure everything went according to plan. I was the monitoring the sound and doing the recording, and Rowan and Tom were helping Becca (our actress) to read the script in the way we wanted in order to add the right effect to the trailer, which we hope will add to the tension we want to create. When we cut and use this voice over to add to our trailer, Tom will be able to cut it in the right places to fit with the visual aspect. This is because before we started to record the voice over, we briefed Becca, telling her how we wanted her to speak and giving her time to practice with the script. This meant that we were able to fulfill the codes and conventions of our chosen genre as much as possible, and I think that when we add this to the final trailer, it will be effective and accomplish the effect we want.