Overall Evaluation

We worked really well as a group with minimal problems which I think was reflected in the final piece, I was happy with the comments made about the Sound. Namely in the drinking scene as that was the part that I had envisioned from the get go, as well as that the instrumental throughout elements in the piece. Tutor and Audience responses to the movie was good and in my opinion this is one of the best pieces I have been a part of this year.

Post Production: Final Touches 09/05/2012

Today I came in once Joe had sorted the colour on the necessary clips, then I gave my opinion on the job he had done and pointed out a few other clips that could do with some colour correction, namely the clip where the girl is lying on the couch and gets up to close the blinds.

The clip on the left shows the original and the right is what it was changed to. I felt it was necessary to make it more blue as the interior is that colour because of the natural light due to the weather we were filming in/around.

Once that was done we fine tuned the piece up until the confrontation scene, tackling it last was the best idea as it was very frustration trying to either match the actors to their script or get all the dialogue levels to sound the same. At one point I decided to export certain sections into Soundtrack Pro to give it an echoed sound to match the other parts.

As well as this because of the rain starting and stopping it made it doubley difficult. It got to a point where there was nothing more we could do. So after another run through where nobody raised any qualms about the picture of the sound we were finished. All that was left was to come up with a name. I was against using a name at all as I felt it would seem forced and not really match the piece especially as it wasn't something we had considered until that point. Regardless one was decided on and we were finally finished.

Post Production: Sound Design 08/05/2012

Today I came in with all the relevant sounds, as per me and Joe's conversation on Thursday. We then went through the sequence and matched each picture clip with the clearest/relevant sound I had found and recorded. It was a long process that took most of the day but it was very rewarding especially when you matched a random sound to a picture and looked and sounded right, such as using a footstep for the sound of a rose falling on the floor. We did everything up to the confrontation scene, deciding to tackle that section tomorrow when we tighten up the edit and after the rest of the group had looked through it. As well as this Joe had some colour correction to do.

Sound List

After going through the sound recordings with the help of the Sound Log I was able to find the majority of the sounds needed for the post production stage on Tuesdays, though there were a few problems, namely that a few of the recorded sounds didn't sound long enough or did fell like it matched the sound that it was supposed to sync with. This mean that we would have to duplicate the sounds ourselves or possibly re record them. This again all depends on what we deem as useful or other wise as we continue to cut down the piece which was still over the limit.

Sound List for Post Production Drama Project

Tutorial and Post Production 03/05/3012

We showed our rough cut to Esther and knew we had a lot to cut down. She didn't have much to say about the piece except for a few shots that we should consider going to ref-ilm and of course that we had to get to cutting down the piece as it currently stood at 8minutes. As well as this there was no sound on the piece except for the confrontation scene. These were the elements that me and Joe had intended to work on today. So after the session we went to the edit suit and imported the sound that I had found to use a few days ago and edited the segments where the sound was going: The drinking and the graveyard scene. As well as this when it came to cutting down the piece I was very brutal and with the help and opinion of both myself Joe and Luke we managed to get the piece to just over five and a half minutes. Whilst this was happening Mark and Fraser went back to the Graveyard to get usable establishing shots for the opening. Me and Joe replaced the old clips with the new before calling it a day.
As well as all of this, as we went through the piece I wrote down all the different sounds I needed to find from the files me and Luke recorded. This would be easy enough as I had been keeping a sound log whilst the sound was being recoded on production days. All I had to do was look at the list, listen to a few of the possibilities then label them and bring them in for our next edit day so we could fit them in the right place.

The clip on the right is one of the new shots Fraser and Mark went back to the Graveyard to get.

Post Production: Soundtrack 01/05/2012

Whilst we were filming we knew the key sections that we wanted sound playing over. These scenes include primarily the Drinking scene as well as the Graveyard section, in the Elevator and during the build up to the Confrontation scene. I knew that I definitely wanted either a dubstep type or alternative track playing under the drinking scene and we came up with a few options.







But due to obvious copyright reasons it was either unattainable or would take more time than we had to get permission, but it did help narrow down the type of style I was looking for.

Frazer told me about a Youtube channel that had copyright free music (Activity Music) and after trolling through the different types of music they had I finally settled on FinalFix - Parastite.

I also found Elevator music that was marked under copyright free and I contacted the person who posted it and am awaiting confirmation

Finally for the opening Graveyard scene Joe led me onto a site called Incompetch (http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/) that has a source of royalty free music where I searched and found a sad piano composition. I had the editor agree with my choices as he would be editing to the sounds and with that done all that was left to do was organise and type up my sound logs in order to start sound designing by the end of the week

Sound Log

Typed up sound log from the three production days. This will help me when it comes to finding selected sounds. I made it easier for myself because at the end of each production day I took all the sound clips on the Marantz and copied them into a separate file on my laptop then deleted everything off the memory card. This meant that we had no worry of running out of space if we were out on location. As well as that it meant that I could locate sounds based on what day we filmed what scene.

Sound Log for Drama Project

Sound Research

Soon enough it would be time for me to start sound designing. I already had a few ideas in mind, such as having Dubstep styled music to play during the drinking scene. But Further research was needed for me to get the right feel of what I wanted the Final Piece to sound like.

I listened to the Tron Soundtrack and though none of the pieces felt like it would fit in with our production it did make me think what unnatural or unexpected elements I should Look for when searching for my Dubstep styled music.





The Main Theme in Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky had me thinking of what sort of instrumental I would use that could some how allow what isn't said to speak at the same volume as what is being said. This sounds a little complicated but I was think of it in terms of "OffScreen Space" A theme we covered in a Film Analysis Lecture that talked about how what isn't shown makes the audience more curious. I felt that this was important because of the Two sides of the character we were trying to show to the audience. To word it in a way that makes sense I needed to look for an instrumental track that had space in between bars.

Overall Production Process

It was a long process but everything kept to schedule and our actors were very professional, there were a few issues that we were able to problem solve such as on the first day of production where we kept adding new ideas to the shot list but others proved more difficult, some that was within out control and others that weren't. Lighting the room and getting rid of shadows helped add to the production time within the house, and the weather/light of the day was something that was a pain. With the lighting of the day especially because one of the scenes that happen nsync had to be shot over two different days because of the actors availability. And finally the rain having to record sound and film from under an umbrella is both awkward and compromising. We all worked well as a team I thought and that helped to make the production process run smoothly and relatively hassle free.

Day 3 Production 26/04/2012

To day we filmed to last to sections of the film, the Graveyard and the Alleyway scene. We had a little hiccough when the cameraman was filming in the wrong format but that was quickly rectified. Luckily the weather was in our favour that morning, but after stopping for a lunch break and allowing the actors to run through their lines a little more we went out to film in the alleyway when the clouds broke. The alleyway we ended up using was different from the one we initially had in mind as when Luke Mark and Fraser got there it was filled with cars and there was to much background noise,, they were fortunate to stumble upon this one and set up shots before the rest of us arrived with the actors. Our actors were happy to film in the gushing rain and we had a rain proof mac to keep them somewhat dry when we rest the shots. Before we knew it we were finished filming.

Day 2 Production 25/04/2012

On the Wednesday our second Actor was available and we started the day by getting the rest of the interior shots filmed before moving on to film things from the outside. One thing we didn't get done which was on the schedule was the Alleyway scene. We decided that it was best to leave it until the last day because there was less to do and we didn't want our actors to feel too over whelmed. As well as this I think things went a lot smoother today as yesterday everyone was coming up with new ideas to add to the shot list. This was all useful as it did  help us consider the odd thing that we forgot to include earlier and some good new ideas were mentioned but the downside to this was that it made the filming go slower than it ultimately would have done. Therefore we decided to just stick to what we had written in the shot list and allow the director and cameraman and producer to come up with anything beneficial with the rest of us only piping up when we thought there night be a continuity error.

Day 1 Production 24/04/2012

As discussed we collected the equipment then came back to my place and started to plan out which house shots we would film and re-enacted the shots so we knew just how we wanted our actress to act so that when she got here there would be no messing around. Though the day felt long we got everything we intended to film filmed, I ticked off all the relevant shots on the shot list as the day went on as well as keeping a sound log. The sound log was something that took me a while to get used to but will prove relevant when it comes to the sound design stage

Pre Production: Location Scouting 23/04/2012

Today the six of us met up at around 5:00pm as per scheduled and did a bit of location scouting.
We already had our three locations in mind: An alleyway, a house and a graveyard. The house and the alleyway were sorted and we had a rough idea of where the graveyard was but we still needed to find the best spot that would fit in with the shots we had planned. We found one that was abandoned behind London Road and I had heard that it was now a public place so permission wasn't necessary, but this was still yet to be verified. We managed to decide upon which area was best to use and where we could get some establishing shots.
The Producer and Editor came and had a look at the house to better visualise the type of shots and the space we had to film in. After that we all split up scheduled to meet back at stores the next day a 1:30pm to get equipment.

Pre Production: Final Idea 19/04/2012

During the session we pitched the two ideas.
Then first one, was quite hard to put into words; A girl who seems to be mourning the death of a friend, she has a stalker who we the audience believe is a killer. He killed her friend and now he wants to kill her too. A series of events leads up to the confrontation scene where we discover the stalker is actually a friend of the deceased and knows the girl killed her and wants her to confess.

The second idea was to be a little more light hearted and was about a man who is tied to a tree after failing to pay back somebody he owed money too. The two people have a conversation and after a while he gets knocked out/falls asleep. When he come's too he finds someone is tied next to him, and they proceed to have witty banter until the end of the movie.

We ended up going with the first pitch for many reasons. Examples being that the weather forecast for the week of production was rain so being tied to a tree wouldn't be the ideal location. As well as this we already had a guy and girl lined up to act parts and the second idea was envisioned as two males.
Though it was quite hard to explain, even to ourselves once we had our heads wrapped around it, the idea made sense and we started building up the story. After attempting to work as one big group we realised we were going know where and broke off into sections and put together a props list, schedule, script before all coming together and working on the Shot List.
All in all it was a very successful planning session and I think it helped to help us all feel a little calmer about starting production on Tuesday.

Drama Project - Shot List


Production Schedule

Planning 17/04/2012

After having a two week break, during which all members of the group had kept in contact via our Facebook group (which we used to discuss possible ideas) we needed to decide on a solid idea.
We spent the next few hours coming up with the genre, characters, plot, location and development of our Drama piece. I believe that though the planning session took longer than we all thought it was very fruitful, and we had two solid ideas for Thursdays session.

Drama Research

What came to mind when we looked at some of the Dramas in session was Webisodes. Shot drama series made only to be seen on the internet, they could be stand alone productions or the can be made as a spin off of an already popular TV Show or used as a way to introduce or Test characters that may be used on a networks more popular show. Examples include Eastenders: E20, Quarterlife, LonelyGirl 15. Though ours was going to be a one off Drama piece and had a lot more restrictions I think it's interesting to see character development in Webisodes such as E20 were the running time of each episode was between 3 and 16 minutes and only had 6 episodes in a season. The webisodes were used as a platform to establish new characters on to Eastenders by focusing on making them appeal to a certain age group through the use of music, age, language and style (15 to 19)



Shows Like LonelyGirl15 had a more direct address approach and the deception it had on the audience for three months in making them believe it was based real life really caught my attention. It's single camera set up and realism is what made people not question its fictionality. It would be good to make a realistic drama piece, as it's all in the scripting and mannerisms of the character. I hope that the piece we make has a certain realistic approach though I think this will be quite hard to achieve.

Drama Project: Character Development

Character Name: Sadi
Age: 23
Appearance: Middle Eastern, living in Germany, wears a Pinstriped Navy Blue Suit.

1. What do you know about this character now that s/he doesn’t yet know?

-He is Going To Help Someone

2. What is this character’s greatest flaw? 

- Perfectionist

3. What do you know about this character that s/he would never admit? 

- He Has A Daughter

What is this character’s greatest asset?

-Gold Bar

If this character could choose a different identity, who would s/he be?

-His Father

What music does this character sing to when no one else is around?

-Sean Paul

In what or whom does this character have the greatest faith?

-His Daughter

What is this character’s favourite movie?

-Aladdin

Does this character have a favourite article of clothing? Favourite shoes?

- Pinstriped Blue Suit

Does this character have a vice? Name it.

-No

Name this character’s favourite person (living or dead).

-His Dog Winston That Died When He Was 6

What is this character’s secret wish?

-To Be With His Daughter

What is this character’s proudest achievement?

-Having A Daughter

What is this character’s greatest fear?

-His Father

Describe this character’s most devastating moment.

-The Unexplained Death Of His Dog Winston

What is this character’s greatest achievement?

-Graduating At A Higher Level Than His Father

What is this character’s greatest hope?

-To Find His Mother

Does this character have an obsession? Name it.

-His Quest To Find His Mother

What is this character’s greatest disappointment?

-Being Compared To His Father By His Mother The Last Time He Saw Her

What is this character’s worst nightmare?

-Finding Out That His Quest To Find His Mother Will Lead To A Dead End

Whom does this character most wish to please? Why?

-Nobody, Though On The Outside It's His Father So That He Can Take Over The Business

Describe this character’s mother.

-Sweet and Confident, Won't Stand For Injustice But It's Ironic Because Of The Man She Married

Describe this character’s father.

-Dictator Like, The Successful Business Man That Won't Allow Any Man Woman Dog Or Child Stand In His Way Or Tarnish His Name

If s/he had to choose, with whom would this character prefer to live?

-His Mother, But Circumstances Were Not In His Favour

Where does this character fall in birth order? What effect does this have?

-He Is The Youngest Of Three. Regardless Of Being The Baby Of The Family He Is The Only Boy So has The Biggest Weight Of Responsibility

Describe this character’s siblings or other close relatives.
-His Sisters Are Very Different, The Oldest Taking After Their Dad But Having A Little More Humanity, Loves Her Brother but Follows Whatever Her Father Says. The Middle Sister Was Both His and His Fathers Favourite, Allowed To Do Whatever She Pleases With Minimal Consequence, Free Spirited and Currently Living In Australia Selling Real Estate.

Describe this character’s bedroom. Include three cherished items.
-A Painting Of A Busy City, -An Alarm Clock With A Secret Compartment -Winston's Collar

What is this character’s birth date? How does this character manifest traits of his/her astrological sign?

-August 10th. He Hates The Sun And Prefers Winter.

If this character had to live in seclusion for six months, what six items would s/he bring

-His Collar, His Pin Striped Suit, 

Why is this character angry?

-Because Of The Hold His Father Has Over Every Bodies Life.

What calms this character?

-The Picture Of The Busy City, His Dream of One Day Being Able To Get Lost In The Crowd

Describe a recurring dream or nightmare this character might have.

-Him looking Into Those Big Eyes Of His Daughter The Day She Was Born Before Switching To The Image Of His Father Sitting In A Prison Cell With A Rocking Chair Holding His Daughter. When He Looks Up At Him He Puts A Finger To His Lips and Says "Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"

List the choices (not circumstances) that led this character to his/her current predicament

-Deciding It Was His Duty To Put An End To His Fathers Tyranny.

List the circumstances over which this character has no control.
-The Death Of His Dog, The Disappearance Of His Mother and Being Born.

What wakes this character in the middle of the night?
-The "Shhhhhhhhhhhhh" Of The Man In His Dreams

How would a stranger describe this character?
-Focused

What does this character resolve to do differently every morning?

-Not Loose The Will To Stop His Father, Though It Gets More And More Difficult Not To Give Up Everyday

Who depends on this character? Why?

-His Daughter Who Thinks The People She Is Living With Loves Her, Not Knowing She's Part Of A Plan For A New Age Of Tyranny 

If this character knew s/he had exactly one month to live, what would s/he do?

-Kill His Father

How would a dear friend or relative describe this character?

-His Father Has Nothing To Say About Him.

What is this character’s most noticeable physical attribute?

-A Single Dimple Though He Never Smiles

What is this character hiding from him/herself?

-There's A Fast Way To End Their Fathers Reign But Is Convinced There Is Another Way As Sadi Doesn't Want To End Up Like Him

Write one additional thing about your character.

-His Baby Mama Is With His Mother.

Drama Project

The next brief is to create a 5 minute drama film about a Journey and as per usual to give us and idea of what we could create in the time frame given we looked at a number of different piece all varying in length, style and audience appeal.

A Brief Summary of the drama piece we were shown:

Sign Language by Oscar Sharp
Pudding Bowl by Vanessa Caswill
About A Girl by Brian Percival
Audio Tour by Stephane Kass
Rite by Michael Pearce
I Do Air by Martina Amati
Le Miroir by Ramon and Pedro

The two piece I am going to talk about in more detail are:

Rite by Michael Pearce



I felt that Rite actually seemed like I was watching a movie. Though it was a lot longer than the piece that we have to make I though that character development and overall story understanding was at the right pace and gave you enough time to bond with characters and understand their situations from early on in the film.

I Do Air by Martina Amati.


I-Do-Air_Clip from ama on Vimeo.


I enjoyed the minimalism in the piece and how the point still came across, though I didn't like the effect they used in the locker room where the girl acted like she was underwater. I thought it didnt match the dynamic of the piece at all and look more horror than childhood fantasy. I thought that the sound throughout worked because in a way it was the mumbled nothing you can hear when you yourself are underwater. It was overall a good piece that told a story in a short amount of time.

Also in this session we got into groups and picked our roles which were as follows
Director: Mark, Producer: George, Camera: Fraser, Sound Recordist, Luke, Editor: Joe Sound Editor/Designer: Jen

I thought it would be a nice change to do sound as I had already tried my hand at Directing, Producing and Editing and Sound isn't something that I am very familiar with or have fully grasped the concept of. This I figured would be a great time for me to learn to do so.

Overall Evaluation (22/02/2012)

In the end I was one of the key editors/co-producer as well as being Director but I wasn't to bothered as I felt that in a way it was all part of the role of the Director. I enjoyed my role as Director and feel that I did a really good job in terms of being the main organiser, both during the production and post production stages,in terms of scheduling and making creative decisions throughout the course of the project as well as taking everyone else's thoughts into consideration. Being the forefront when it came to conducting the interviews and getting release forms signed etc whilst still managing to direct the Camera and Sound elements though Alex and Hannah both took a lot of their own initiative when it came to there job roles.

I think that overall what we achieved as decent, though I felt it could have been a lot better than how it turned out. The points made by the tutors I felt were reasonable as well as understandable, though points to do with the stage lighting in the Cavern Club was out of hands and was something we couldn't have changed on the day if we wanted to.
When thinking about the editing style I think  the phrases "Too Many Cooks Spoil The Broth" best describes it. Due to scheduling conflicts with the main editor who couldn't make enough days and times to make sure the piece was finished in time the group ended up splitting itself into two. Alex Hannah and I doing the bulk of the editing and Clarice and Sophie pitching a few hours here and there when they could. Though we considered the creative comments made by Clarice and Sophie, I think the rest of us felt as though, because we were putting in the most amount of hours we should therefore have the final say. We did have a third party evaluating the editing process on the last day who took an objective view to the sequences Alex Hannah and I had edited in comparison to what the others had done.

I think in the end that working in such a large group was a shock to us all but I did enjoy being Director and I would happily play that role again.

Post Production (21/03/2012)

Today was the last day of editing so me Hannah and Alex got in an early start. Alex hadn't been around for a few days so he had a good subjective eye in watching some of the sequences that me and Hannah had edited in comparison to the same sequence but edited differently by Clarice and Sophie. We managed to merge a few sections to trying to use both ideas.
The main thing to work on was audio levels, transitions both filter and picture wise to fill jumps in the way that the interview had been cut. As well as this there was also some colour correction that needed to be sorted out. Finally though me and Hannah had previously put together a rough outline of what all the sequences would look like on the same timeline both shot and time wise we still needed to fit all the pieces together.

We also came to the tough conclusion over a debate we were having about keeping in the Museum of Liverpool sequence, deeming it too short, and the content not really providing any solid or unique information. In the end we scrapped it.

Putting everything together took longer than we anticipated and the hours just kept ticking off, by the time we knew it the three of us were finally exporting the finalised version pretty late.

Post Production (19/03/2012 - 20/03/12)

On Monday during our workshop Hannah, Sophie, Clarice and I went through what had been done so far and what left to do, fixing little things in each sequence but mostly concentrating on the longer Cavern Club sequence, after the session me and Hannah stayed to try and work on how we could make the sequences flow into each other.

On Tuesday Hannah and I came in, in the morning to finish what we had started in terms of how to link the shots, then later on in the afternoon we swapped over with Clarice and Sophie to take over leaving them with a list of shots to consider and where the fades and transitions needed to be added in the different sequence we had added.

Post Production (17/03/2012)

Today I feel like I did a fair amount that would put us back on track when it came to finishing the editing for Tuesday/Early Wednesday. I managed to put a tight edit on the Cavern Club interviews as well as putting together the best parts of the interviews from the Beatles Gift Shop and the Liverpool Museum, all that was left was to find substantial cut aways to interject between the interviewees as well as pulling together all the answers from the Vox Pops. Happy that I cam in today as I now feel a lot better about the edit process and hope the other two like what I've put together.

Editing the Cavern Sequence:

The first section of the interview

Adding Cut Aways

Playing with the sound levels

The Beatles Gift Shop:

Leaving spaces between cuts for cut aways

The Liverpool Museum:

Picking out the best part of the interview and adding a rough guide of where cut aways are needed.

Vox Pops:

Getting them together and giving them a sort of flow.

Research

After considering The Apology Line I started to think of different subject genres that documentaries can be used in, The News is a form of documentary, informing you of different events within each segment. As a whole on the other hand it may prove harder to justify.

Music Videos can also be documentaries, such as them showing be hind the scenes footage, sometimes juxtaposed with them performing the song but mostly not, if anything adding a few elements to jazz it up.

Two examples include

McFly: Baby's Coming Back

They keep just to the performance element mixed with a few behind the scenes shots

and

Paramore: Hallelujah

They go for the more stylised option.

Both I feel are in a way documentary styles music videos, as it chronicles and tells a story about the characters real lives, and the audio can be described as the basis of the narrative for the piece.

Post Production (16/03/2012)

Alex Hannah and I came back to the edit suit in between classes to see what the others had done the day before. We decided to work a bit more the section we had been dealing with the day before which was the intro, correcting a few things that Esther had picked up on during the tutorial. We decided to call it a day after that and went off to our next session hoping that one of the others would turn up to edit later on in the day. Regardless I had volunteered to come in tomorrow to edit the Cavern Club section as well as pulling out the most important parts of the other interviews.

Tutorial/Post Production (15/03/2012)

After showing Esther what Alex and Hannah had edited the previous night she also helped us decided on some kind of structure for the piece and made a few comments to do with the aesthetics of the piece: Colour, Framing,  and general flow as well as giving us a few things to think about for when we got back to editing. The three of us then went straight from the Tutorial to the Edit Suit where we touched up a few things that Esther had mentioned as well as coming up with our own structure for the edit.

Clarice and Sophie showed up in the afternoon and took over from us, we discussed what we talked about in the tutorial as well as giving them the edit structure we came up with, telling them which sequences to work on.

Post Production (14/03/2012)

Hannah Alex and I came in to do some editing, firstly we had to sort out moving all of our footage from the old mac to the new one which took longer than expected, then we went about trying to come up with a rough edit guide but everything we tried just wasn't working or didn't look as good as we had imagined it to. Then before we knew it, it was 17:00 and we had to leave because there was a class on until 20:00. I had other unavoidable plans so couldn't come back after the class was over but Alex and Hannah edited together a few possible options in order to show Esther for our tutorial tomorrow.

Post Production: (13/03/2012)

Today Me and Sophie were supposed to upload the second tape and start editing. After waiting around a bit I decided to just get started on my own but sadly the computer that Alex had uploaded everything on was in use by someone else who when asked said they would be there all day, I went to see if I could book it out for another day but they had beat us to it and it wasn't free till Friday. I then decided to instead upload what was on the second tape and export it as a quick time and call it a day. Especially as it was only 12mins and only contained a few Vox Pops and some music from the Cavern Club. I later called Alex and explained what had happened we decided it was best to get the footage from that mac and move to a more accessible one.

Liverpool: Day 2 - Production (06/03/2012)

The Plan for the day was as followed:

Liverpool Plans for Blog

Everything ran smoothly, a few things on the list got switched round, due to which ones we thought would be the easiest to film and therefore get out of the way so we could focus more on the more important one/ Ones we thought would take the most amount of time.
We also got a tip whilst we were getting Vox Pops to head over to The Grapes because the man who used to manage T he Beatles was over there, sadly we missed him by a few minutes but it provide a good change of background to get a few more Vox Pops. Though a few things ran over and a few things went quicker than expected the Schedule was very useful in helping us keep on top of things, and we ended up being finished a little earlier than anticipated.

A few production stills...

Liverpool: Day 1 - Pre Production (05/03/2012)

The Group was as as follows: Jen (Director) Alex (Camera) Hannah (Sound) Clarice (Producer) Sophie (Editor). Once we had all arrived and settled we had a little meeting to decide how to split up and where we should go to do a little more recceing, Clarice had already been in Liverpool and helpfully knew her way around. Clarice and Sophie went to talk to the two museums, The Beatles Story Museum and the Museum of Liverpool as she had been emailing them in regards to our being allowed to film there tomorrow. That left me Alex and Hannah to go to the Cavern Club on Matthew Street to ask permission to film inside as well as a few of the acts. On the way down there we passed a Beatles Gift Shop and I thought it was worth a go asking if we were able to film inside and perhaps get an interview.

Once we had finished our respective research we all met up by the docks and walked back to the Hostel. On the walk back Clarice and Sophie said they didn't have much luck with the Story Museum as they said they needed at least 3weeks notice and Clarice had only giving them a week and a half (Due to when we got the brief and decided upon an idea) Luckily The Museum of Liverpool were a little more lenient and allowed us to film though we hadn't given two weeks notice, though there were a few minor restrictions such as: No putting down a tripod and not disrupting any other visitors. Me Hannah and Alex were a lot more fortunate as the Cavern Club and the Beatles Gift Shop allowed us to film in their establishments tomorrow.
Back at the hostel Clarice, Hannah, Alex and I sat down and made a plan discussing times of meeting, what we would film, and in what order as well as how long it would take.

Sophie joined us for the tutorial where we told Esther our Ideas and Plans for the next day, all of which was discussed during the production meeting we had had beforehand. That brought the first day of in Liverpool to an end.

Pre Production: Ideas and Treatment (01/03/2012)

After we got into groups we then had to come up with a documentary idea. Each of us went away and looked at various liverpool specific sources to gather any information we thought we could make a documentary over.
The original list had stories to do with Liverpool Football Club, A Jewellery Shop Theft, Desperate Scousewives, 50th Beatles Anniversary, Style and Culture across Liverpool, Volunteers cleaning up Speke Hall

In the end however we chose the story of how Desperate Scousewives wasn't being renewed for a second season and the anticipation for the 50th anniversary celebration of the Beatles.

I was leaning towards doing the idea of the Desperate Scousewives story because I thought the Beatles one would be to common and a little obvious.

I went away and did the Treatment for the Desperate Scousewives Idea my angle being about how the show has effected the people of Liverpool, is it a stereotype or is it a true likeness of their personalities. Then to branch off and talk about the style of liverpool based on another article we had found Liverpool Style and Culture in the Liverpool Echo

Alex did the treatment for the Beatles 50th Anniversary celebration, the angle for this basically being about what the locals were planning to do to celebrate.

Treatments:
Treatment (Desperate Scousewives)

Treatment (The Beatles 50th)

In the end Esther thought the Beatles Idea was the most solid and the majority was in favour so we stared planning and preparing for that idea. Clarice had already gotten in contact with the Beatles Museum and the Museum of Liverpool so we were just waiting to hear back.

Documentary Project

Our next assignment is to create a 5 minute Documentary during our residential trip to Liverpool. After we got into groups I spoke up first and said that I wanted to be director, luckily getting in there just before Sophie who then voiced that she also wanted to be director. Camera was then taken by Alex and Clarice who was already going to be around Liverpool took Producer as she could do some research before we arrived. Hannah took sound thus leaving the role of Editor to Sophie.

My personal view on documentaries isn't a positive one but that's due to my way of thinking,n I much prefer documentaries about animals. If I ever do watch a documentary of peoples lives it is because I am with a friend and I cannot leave or for educational purposes, I never actively seek out to watch them.

To give us a better idea of the style and type of the documentary that we wanted to produce we look a range of documentary types including....

The Making Of Dark Days
Skateistan: To Live and Skate Kabul (2010) by Orlando Van Einseidel
The Archive by Sean Dunne
King Of Laughter by Nick Hillel
Erics Secrets by Lucia Ashmore
Pockets by James Lees
The Apology Line by James Lees

The two of which I am going to look at in more detail are The Archive by Sean Dunner and The Apology Line by James Lees

The Archive



I didn't like this documentary solely for the reason I thought that it was made as a bout of sympathy for the people portrayed. I didn't really give the audience anything they could take away, it may have been informative but nothing I feel you could go away and retell to someone else. I think to make it better they could have a removed a few elements such as the crying wife, or to stretch the documentary out over half an hour so that you didn't feel overwhelmed with guilt. If it was spread over time then it would have felt as though it was your choice to feel for characters. Having  it only being seven minutes then it felt like the emotions were forced on you.

The Apology Line



I felt that this was unlike any other documentaries I have seen before. The concept itself made it a documentary, it's a chronicle of real peoples confessions. The dialogue spoke volumes and the added imagery I felt slightly added to that in the sense that it was all at night giving that mysterious and secretly element whilst the characters they used during certain confessions I felt that they were metaphors for the confessions. It was defiantly the most interesting and more unique documentaries I have seen giving me a more open mind towards a subject that I thought nothing of initially.

Overall Evaluation 15/02/2012

Now that we have officially finished, have the movie exported and burned on to two different discs it's time for a little reflection from the past three weeks of work.

I feel that we worked really well as a group though at times it got a little hard especially having three people in a group and having only two tasks that needed to be done so at times someone would feel a little redundant, but we pushed through. It is odd to think back to the original idea and see how far we have come in terms of idea development whether it be down to choice or circumstance. Making a 5minute movie was a lot harder than I thought even though its a few more minutes than what we're all used to and I think because the genre was experimental that it made it a lot more challenging. Also joining a team that already had an idea in play and having no other choice than to just agree to the plans despite my opinions was quite difficult but I was glad that as we went on I became connected to the project as much as the others.
I did really enjoy the project and would like to maybe one day try again and make my own experimental movie.

Audience Feedback

I had a few people watch the final piece to generate some feedback and here are a few of the responses:


It was definitely really weird, and I guess that's what experimental is supposed to be, I didn't understand some parts but I got that the guys life was in black and white and by the end everything has colour. 


Some of the shots just didn't fit in and I thought they were over used, like the coloured dots on all over the place, I would have preferred if everything stayed black and white. The ending was really good though.


I thought the white face painted guy was a bit over the top to begin with but I got the significance as it went one. Also I think the sound worked really well, some parts freaked me out a little.

Overall the feedback was good and constructive and the majority of the people that watched had nothing but good to say.

Post Production: Tuesday 14/02/2012

Today we managed to finish everything. Having decided to get an earlier start so that we could be finished before everywhere got crowded, as per mentioned all that was left was finishing the last minute and syncing the sound with the image.  Again this took longer than we thought it would but in the end we all watched the piece three or four times to make sure all the sound was in check, the images were where they were supposed to be and that it looked good. Happy to be finished we realised that we would have to come back again tomorrow as we didn't have any discs on us.

Exporting the final video including the titles so we could then import it on to soundtrack pro and sync the sound.

Both the sound and video together in Soundtrack pro so we could add the sound effects and make sure the atmospheric track was in the right place.

Post Production: Monday 13/02/2012

Today we brought the sound and the image together. Joeley had been working on the sound over the weekend and we all came together to put it together with the image. It was a lot harder than we had initially anticipated, though the atmospheric track she had created worked well with the piece we then had the task of adding in the sound effects which involved a lot of back and forth between the three of us.

By the end of the day we had managed to get a stronger edit with only the last minute left to fully edit and to insert the sound and the accompanying effects in all the right places. Having being cooped up in the edit suit for just over eight hours we decided to come back and finish it on Tuesday.

Me and Dan doing some editing on a few of the later sections whilst Joeley worked on the earlier ones that we were certain we had no reason to edit any more.

A few screen grabs of Joeley working on the sound. Manipulating some tracks to give it an eerie feel to suit the theme of the piece.

This is the method that we used for the majority of the day.

Experimental Artists: Melina Matsoukas

Namley the video she directed by Rihanna S&M

Sound Design

Joeley decided to focus on the sound once we had established that we had finished with all the production side of things. Me and Dan commented on whatever she brought us to listen but ultimately we never had any problems with any other the sounds as we were clued in every step of the way.

To see how she got on click on the following link:

Joeley on Sound Creation and Editing

Experimental Artist: Bartholomew Cubbins

The music video Hurricane by 30 Seconds To Mars is an experimental piece by Bartholomew Cubbins, which is pseudonym used by actor and lead sing of the band Jared Leto. The events of the music video shows the three band members being chased, having hallucinations and confronting enemies in this fictional world. This 12minute piece contains explicit content and was therefore banned from a number of sites and channels when it was first released. Director Jared Leto stated that he had no problem with this.
I particularly like the exploration of each of the characters throughout the piece as well as the pacing and the realistic-ness it still manages to obtain as a music video.

Post Production: Saturday 11/02/2012

Today it was me and Dan again as we uploaded all the footage from the previous day and spent 4hours or so labelling what we had, sifting through what was usable and adding effects to the necessary clips.
We also put together a rough assembly of the clips so we had a new sequence that we had to entwine with what we previously had. On the weekend you have to leave at 5:00pm, we got to 4:00pm and decided there was no point trying to attempt the final edit as we wouldn't get far before having to leave to decided to just wait till Monday where we would also be able to show Joeley what we had accomplished so far.

Production: Friday 10/02/2012

I was really pleased with how production went today as we were all organised and felt a lot better compared to the slump we had been in for the majority of the week. We managed to get all the shots we intended do done plus extra and managed to fit in some shots that we had previously abandoned deeming them to complicated. We had finally finished production and Dan never had to put on white face paint for the sake of art ever again. This left us just under a week to tighten the edit and work in the sound.

Tutorial: Thursday 09/02/2012

In the morning of the tutorial we all got together again to work a little more on the editing, this was the first time I had seen what the other two had edited and so I was able to pin point clips that didn't fit in and ones that worked really well. Then it was off to see Esther who gave us a range of suggestions and thoughts that we used as a spring board as to how we could improve our work.

Structure of shots can be tightened.

In the edit we could zoom in to give the piece a grainer look.

Get rid of the "Why Colour" shots.

Balls of colour on the clock.

Candles were the weakest shots. (Which we were planning on re shooting)

Split up the shots of the balls popping up to happen throughout.

Also our piece is lacking sound, which was something that we have had at the back of our mind during the production process. Initially we thought about using narration before deciding that it would take away from what we wanted the piece to say. Since then we have been at a loss, but there have been a few idea floating around such as reversing sounds to give an eerie off centre chilling feel using wind chimes. Esther did give us a few ideas which again we took into consideration and bounced ideas off of.

Putting a contact mike on something that is filled with air or water.

An olden kettle coming to boil that would increase the tension.

Making whatever sound we choose to be strange but not to over the top try-hard strange.

Juxtaposition of perhaps having a happy music with the depressing scenery.

Lastly different sources we could look at to help us for the rest of the project

1960's Mime Artists

Jacque Tati - Playtime, Mr Hulas Holiday

Eraserhead - David Lynch and Allan Splets

Overall I think it was an okay tutorial especially because we all thought that what we had so far was completely worthless, so it was nice to hear that there was still some potential and hope to making it a successfully finished piece in time for next weeks assessment. We were going to go back and do some more editing but decided against it as we weren't in the mood and I always feel it's a lot nicer and more efficient to work when you are in the mood to do so.

Post Production: Wednesday 08/02/2012

In anticipation for the upcoming tutorial we had on Thursday we uploaded the footage from the previous day and got down to making a tighter edit. It was only Joeley and Dan that did the editing as I had other plans and after some discussion we agreed that it didn't take all three of us to be there during the editing process as the third person would come with a new perspective and opinions about what does and doesn't look effective in the edit.

Production: Tuesday 07/02/2012

After uploading and looking at the shots we had gotten so far, we used this next production day to correct shots that didn't look good in edit and to try and round up what we had left.
The main part of our piece is the use of stop motion so we tried to focus on that segment as we had been putting it off and off since we had started. It worked really well but was a long process and a job that required a lot of concentration. I think we managed to work really well in terms of co-ordination. Me and Joeley doing the stop motion and Dan operation the camera. Then switching over from time to time. We were hoping that this would be the last day of Production but it didn't seem likely. It got to a point where we decided to stop and edit what we had tomorrow in order to show Esther on Thursday during our tutorial, that way wouldn't start anything that in the end may have turned out to not even be useful.

A Trip To The Moon

Not really experimentsal, though I guess for the time It was filmed in it was but I really like A trip to the Moon by George Méliés. It also helps you to realise how much film has developed over the decades.