Pre-Production Diary

30/09/2014

Today we finalized our shot list and made it up to 90 seconds exactly, however we are aware with editing this may change. Reuben also looked and researched for music tracks that could be of use in our production and to see if it would fit with our shots to build up and effective sequence. The soundtrack Reuben found was called 'requiem for a dream' this is a build up of tension and curiosity all in one, the music seemed to fit with the idea we are going with, we have wrote this down to keep it in mind when we move on to the editing and planning the soundtrack. Additionally when we finished our shot list we moved onto our story board and have sorted out a system of how we will each play a part. Charlie is very talented at drawing so we agreed he would be the best for the pictures, Reuben and I will do the writing section I will focus of the mise-en-scene of what is occurring in the shot and Reuben will fill in the type of angle and duration. By next lesson our aim is to finalize the storyboard in order to move on and be able to get onto filming next week.

01/10/2014

Today we carried on with the storyboard with Charlie being the artist and I was filling in the technical writing part, meanwhile Reuben was printing off the documents we need to be able to film in certain places and also allowing us to take part in the production. Reuben printed off a location release which is allowing us to film in certain places, then there was a recce sheet which is when we go out and plan where we are doing it and evaluate the area and how it will work, finally there was a 'minor form' which we need parental consent under the age of 18 to be able to film this pre production. Today we established that we are unable to film next week because the college is not open on two days and would not be appropriate to start filming something we cannot finish till a week later. This paper work given this week is the for the deadline next Monday 06/10/2014

02/10/2014

Today we printed off the location releases and recce sheets ready for the next lesson to go down west block and ask staff when would be an appropriate time to use these locations. Additionally charlie finished off the drawing for the storyboards and I am taking them home to finish off the writing part of it. We printed off risk assessments ready to fill in also.

03/10/2014

Today we finalized a lot of paperwork. Reuben and charlie set off to find the location and get the rooms we need to film and after some set backs we have finally got the rooms we need, we are using the prop room, the meeting room 2, our creative media room, the public services room and the corridor. Reuben handled the location releases and charlie handled the recce sheets and analysed each room. While they were doing this I was taking hand of the risk assessments which sadly I could't finish today this means I am sending it to Reuben to finish on Monday as I am not here. Additionally I worked on the production schedule plan of what rooms we are doing and when, also when we are available as we sorted out with another group today what lesson they can take Reuben to do some filming with him. Also for me to do some filming with another group and the availability of the prop room because other groups are filming in there. We also sorted our prop list and what we need and on what days we need it. Today was a successful day  

08/10/2014
Today we uploaded pictures to upload onto our blog, we had to edit them on Photoshop to black out private information. Additionally we had to finish off little bits of extra information because one of my team mates didn't complete it to it's full capacity. We had to add some extra bits to our location releases and recce sheets and because of this it resulted in us being slightly behind on taking photographs of each newly edited sheet. This caused us to not be able to upload all of our work on our blog.

10/10/2014
Today on flip-snack I made a flip book of my paper work I had finished, even though not all the images are there a majority of them are available to see. We didn't have college today so this work was done individually by me at home, this was an independent task. 

13/10/2014
Today was our first day of filming and on our production schedule and for our first lesson it was planned to go to meeting room 2 which is one of our booked rooms and film the props in position and Reuben's facial expressions. We succeeded this task and finished early and decided to move on to what filming we had planned for next lesson as today was a double. As we completed this earlier in the day our next lesson we spent taking the finishing pictures to complete our uploaded paper work which has now fully been successfully uploaded. As charlie missed out on a lesson last week and was unable to retrieve the photos this lesson he spent collecting the images from Reuben to upload to his blog, today i believed with the filming as a team we worked really well and all contributed and played our parts in it and that it was made it successful and helped us complete the filming efficiently.   

14/10/2014
Today we completed the filming we set out to do in the production schedule, we had some trouble with the tripod because it was a rather old and stiff one which caused me to have to use just my hands to film. The footage still was at a good quality however when we edit we might need to stabilize the shakiness of it, additionally today one of our props which was this eye patch and we couldn't find, we couldn't find the eye patch. This didn't have a massive effect on our filming however will be now a consistent error in a part of our film that we will have to take care of by not making it so noticeable. As today was a double our second lesson consisted of us uploading the files we had filmed so far onto a mac computer and into a Adobe Premiere to view what we had done so far and reflect on how we could do better.  Additionally because we had some free time I worked with Adam's group as they needed me to help them complete a scene this means that tomorrow when I wasn't going to be with my group I now will be able to work with them. 

15/10/2014
Today we filmed the footage that was planned to film tomorrow including the corridor scenes of Reuben walking down the corridor and approaching rooms. There was a huge amount of teamwork happening today helping me with setting up the tripod, with the mobile tripod on wheels as well and that is what made us finish filming efficiently and on time. After we finished filming Reuben went to help out another group with their filming while me and charlie uploaded the footage to Adobe Premiere and had a go at using the editing tools, however we did not save any edits made as we were just learning how to use them ready for editing next week. 

16/10/2014
Today was the day we had booked the prop room for filming which is to be our first room being used, we got the footage we needed successfully. However another group in there before us had extended a light to it's highest joint and when Reuben moved the curtain the light fell down and one of the bulbs inside smashed, straight away we got Ellie and Josh to help us with the situation and to get the caretaker to come and clear up so we were able to film safely. After we finished filming we came back to the media room to overlook our footage and make sure we got what we had planned to film, then Reuben uploaded the footage onto the mac so it is all ready for us to edit next week. Although Reuben forgot our original SD card which means that we didn't have all our footage to look over which has set us back. Tomorrow we are filming in public services room and because it's a double the second lesson we will look over all our footage and save it to the mac and hopefully be able to start to put it in order on Adobe Premiere and set ourselves up prepared for next weeks editing time.

17/10/2014
Today was the last day of filming and luckily it was a double lesson, planned for this day was first lesson some extra corridor shots so we would be prepared and can add parts into the short production if needed and second lesson we had booked a room to do the last room for filming in. First lesson was successful and Reuben remembered the SD card today this meant that we could upload all our previous footage onto media-b and successfully be prepared for next weeks editing. Second lesson we filmed in the public services room and at first we thought we had some trouble because there was a class that appeared in there when we had the right to film, we decided to wait 10 minutes and go and check again to see if anyone was in there and the class had left and it was free for us to use and film our last piece in. Overall today at times was a bit of a panic and rather stressful however we finished filming by the deadline and were able to after successfully upload our footage and additionally place it into Adobe Premiere and sort it out in the order, to be prepared for next weeks editing.                   

20/10/2014
This week we are editing and today we were able to place our footage in its sequence we realized that there was some videos that consisted of a continuity errors however we got passed this by cropping and trimming sections of the footage and fixed these errors. Reuben was a massive help to me and Charlie today by helping us with editing because we didn't have as much knowledge of editing however it worked really well and we caught onto it quite quickly and in one lesson we uploaded all our footage and cropped it accurately to 1.29.10 this is as close to 90 seconds we got to. As today was a double lesson the second lesson was spent researching potential music and deciding as a group what would fit best and what places to accurately use it, we knew we wanted this idea of tension building and creating suspense and mystery.


21/10/2014
Reuben had an idea of the soundtrack we could use called 'requiem for a dream' and it was a perfect fit for the piece however it has been overused and is most common in sequences like this one. After this we decided to research a range of different creepy music via youtube and created a folder to download them onto which would allow us to chop in different types of music at different points in the film. However we came to a decision to use the dead science piece but after showing josh he told us how we cannot copy right a soundtrack as our videos will be uploaded to youtube, this proposed a difficult task for us because we had to find a complete new soundtrack and fit in all the sound effects. After researching on royalty free music we found the perfect piece which fit our pre production even better than the dead silence one, we chose this piece and finished in cutting parts of the sound effects like the slamming door and reuben's sound effects.

22/10/14
Today after our fallback of having to search for a new track we came to finalising the editing with the sound effects and music making sure it correctly fit in. Additionally we worked on the colour of the production today and placed the saturation to -80 on each part of the footage because it wasn't full black and white but it was that idea with faded colour, we thought it would create an uncertainty feeling and reinforce the feeling of suspense and questionable edge to the production. Reuben brought in his SD card today because we realised we were missing a piece of footage however luckily we found it and added it in and cropped it to fit the 90 second limit. Overall we believe we have finished editing, we do need Ellie to check it before we export it however I believe we have worked hard on it. Not the whole group at times but a majority of the time.

23/10/14
Today we finalized our editing and presented it to josh who then said it was ready to be exported after we exported it we placed it onto an SD card ready for josh to upload to YouTube and mark it. Overall the editing I found was easier than the filming once I got the hang of it.