Establishing shot

In this establishing shot you can see: a rucksack, tin cans, newspapers and typical toilet facilities. The use of the rucksack connotes that he moves from location to location, representing the lawless society and the binary opposite of good vs evil. Secondly, the use of the tin cans connotes a food source but the fact that they are empty represents the lack of nutrients and the characters struggle to not face hunger (which follows a conventional theme within a Dystopia.) Thirdly, the newspapers connote an abandoned toilet because this subverts against a typical modern day toilet as you would expect to see most of the mirror. We were initially going to use blood but we did not have any in time. This would have been more effective in creating suspense and making the opening more gruesome.
This setting is connoted as grimy, which is positive because we want to connote a negative future. Also, it emphasises the lack of buildings because he wouldn't be sleeping in this location if there were better options. Furthermore, the colour of brown, white and green also helps to exaggerate the connotations of a disgusting location and I think they work well in producing a darker overall result, possibly resembling the Thriller genre more. I think that this shot was successful because it clearly established the setting, as the audience could get a real sense for the sub-genre. Additionally, we chose this high angle to create a sense that this was significant because it connoted that the setting was being watched. Also this angle was practically positive since it enabled more of the performance space to be seen by the audience, hopefully increasing their understanding.

Shots that we decided not to use...

Shooting Schedule

Audience feedback on production 1

I have completed this to show what our formal and informal target audience are appealed by and what they think could be improved or changed.

22nd January 2016

This week we continued our filming, we faced a problem because we have not got the bandages or the cardboard box yet, so we had to really think about the shot types, so that we could leave space for these props. Secondly, we were struggling  with the running scene because we were initially going to do a long shot of the protagonist being chased, but this didn't really work, so in the end we decided to do a tracking shot. At first, I struggled to film this because Hubert was running too quickly so the camera was shaking, so I had to rearrange the way I held it and we had to slow down in order to make it look effective. Nevertheless, on the film the fact that this shot is not the steadiest is effective in my opinion because it connotes that he is being chased and the hallucination. Finally, this week we have developed some of our ideas, for example, we have decided that we should cut out the eyeline match of Hubert looking at his watch  (which is off-screen) and then a close up of the watch, because I could not vision this shot as effective, and we all thought that it would negatively break up the tension. We face another challenge because we still have not found suitable sound that can juxtapose the shots and help to build up the tension.

Friday 15th January 2016

During this week our production has developed in the way that we have filmed many shots and uploaded them onto Final Cut, but they are yet to be edited because we have unsurprisingly not filmed in shot order. We faced a difficultly as we could only film certain shots at a time meaning that we had to be as precise as possible when putting the tin cans up on the second day of filming. As we do not have the bandages and the radio we had to be careful what we were getting in every shot because we obviously want to leave space for these props. In todays lesson we just caught up on where we were in the research and planning stages so that we can complete everything soon and we also scanned in the actor release form.

Model release form

BBFC Institutional regulations

Shooting Script

Sound research

This link from YouTube is influential because although it only discusses certain tips, the speaker clearly portrays the suggestion that you should always do your own thing to make it unique. This is beneficial because it means that our non-diegetic music can have aspects of non-copyright with additions. This could also work well to build the tension as we could possibly blend different sounds to really effect the senses. At the moment we have not really discussed sound, but this would be the focus after filming.

From this YouTube link I have learnt new key words for example, Library effects, which are pre-recorded effects that is not linked to a particular vision or scene. Often these sound effects are difficult to obtain, dangerous to produce or expensive, like a gun shot or explosions. However, we will obviously not divide jobs between the Dialogue, Sound Effects and Music mixer because we are limited to the amount of people within our group and we are simply not specifically trained for each sound. Finally, it was interesting how in the days of Jack Foley all of the sounds had to be recorded in one single take and what the process was to successfully achieve this. I have learnt that we should always try and create and use the most realistic sounds.

Friday 8th January

This week we began our Smart Script so that we can hopefully film next week and we produced a script taking audio recording of a fellow media group member to read the voice of the news presenter. We think that we may edit this to make it sound like a realistic news broadcast. At the moment we have not really thought of any changes within our production, apart from the changes in the shot list through more editing techniques like match on action and the 180 degree rule. Our aim is to have completed the filming by a week and a half, so that we can then edit it.

Preliminary task

This is our preliminary task which is a continuity exercise that was set to test our knowledge upon three techniques-match on action, shot reverse shot and the 180 degree rule. I wasn't on location when they filmed this, but we have discussed how we will incorporate them within our final production to help it to become more successful. I think that this task was positive and rewarding because it has enabled us to understand how we could include these in our opening. We have decided that we will now include match on action at the start of our production, (after the title sequence) to connote that he has just escaped from cannibals and to represent the protagonists age because it will improve the connotations of his strength and bravery as the match on action will include him forcing the door shut. Additionally, we were already aware that the camera should always stay on one side of the 'imaginary line,' unless you are moving it to the other side through a hand held flowing shot, therefore we were able to put this too the test and find out whether we were able to do this successfully. Finally, the editing technique of shot reverse shot was influential towards our piece because even though it will only include one character, we can still use this between the character and props to connote his relationship with certain objects and also that he is going to use it soon. Whilst making this, Will forgot that the DSRL would not auto-focus, leading for some of the shots to turn out blurry. However, this task was obviously designed as a 'warm up' and so that we can experiment with different things and learn from our mistakes. The chosen non-diegetic sound was: "Romantic" - Bensound.com (Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence)

Dialogue Script

Location shots

We chose this location because we wanted to use a grimy setting to represent the lack of nature and the lawless society as the main character has to hide in this location. The mirror was perfect to connote a typical toilet and it also led to us being able to film him boxing, to connote his past life, as he fought in the army. The use of the boxing would could represent his authority and age because he is still physical strong. Furthermore, the location provided us with cramp space which was again positive because it helped to connote the tough life the character is living in, possibly representing that his mind is trapped in the past. Next, this toilet had a door which was great because we knew that we wanted to include banging on the door to connote that people had found him and this would also allow us to use match on action in a simple manner. Lastly, this location has an air vent meaning that we would be able to connote the escape route, emphasising that he has been found and is one of the human cannibals main target, representing his importance within the moving image. However, to improve this location it would have been better if it was not in as good condition to create the grimy and demolishing connotations more, but unfortunately we were not able to use the less modernised toilet which we found due to a understandable reason.

Risk Assessment (Will Guy)

Guardians of the Galaxy as an influential moving image.

This opening scene from Guardians of the Galaxy is one of the influences towards our production because we love the use of juxtaposing sound to represent his laid back and cool character. Whilst he is in a dark and remote location, which is ambiguous and quite intriguing, providing aesthetic pleasures. We think that we would do something like this because it provides humour and effectively juxtaposes the tension.
During the filming we experimented with this by replacing the headphones with the radio and by including a short dance by the character. Nevertheless, when we got onto the editing stage we decided that this was not effective because the practical spacing within the room did not allow us to use a suitable shot type and this simply was not as pleasurable as this influence.

Online tutorials and responses

This research has been beneficial because it allowed me to understand what all of the rules were: 360 degree rule, shot reverse shot and match on action, which impacted our final opening because it developed our ability to produce alternate techniques or shot types. In relation to our end product, we followed the 360 degree rule, which is essential anyway, to provide a smooth and to prevent confusion, whilst we experimented with shot reverse shot using eyeline match and match on action at the beginning. However, we decided not to use these shots in the end because did not 'fit in.'

The Christmas break

Over Christmas i have completed the Genre Theory task of Divergent: Insurgent which contains the Dystopia sub-genre and was influential towards our overall plot as we aim to use conventions like strict divisions within class and the use of the different fractions helped us to build up our protagonist as we think that he should share similarities to Tris Prior in the way that he is partly an anti-hero and contains different characteristics like intelligence, bravery and honesty. Also, we know have enough newspapers to cover the mirrors in the toilet and we are continuing to collect tin cans. So, at the moment all is going well, but the only difficulty will be the time we have left to complete all of the work so we will continue to do tasks at home.