Pleasantville Effect Test Footage

The pleasantville effect is the effect when everything is black and white, except from one colour. This is usually red as it's a vibrant colour that stands out among the monochrome colours. This is perfect for a noir film. And our group would love to be able to use this effect, especially since our story is based of Red Riding Hood.

In the video attached above, you can see our first attempts the effect. While it doesn't look too great it's better than nothing. I learnt how to do it in about twenty minutes and for my first attempt I think it's not too bad.

Here is a link to the video that I used.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCIis-96Qmc

Reflective comment: Our problem was the colours around our desired target were too alike. However where we would use this in our film  this would not be a problem, as the colours would contrast heavily. We need to do so more testing to better the effect but after that I think it'll look pretty good. 

Location Photoshoot

Here are some photos from our very first visit to our first location. Getting shots like this is incredibly useful as it helps us decide on what shots to use and what locations fit best.

We've decided to use this location, and I do think it's quite important to the narrative. The house is destroyed and abandoned, and it's in the middle of no where. It shows how the main central protagonist is disjointed from society after the events of the film and I do think it represents how the MCP is emotionally defeated by the end. 

 

Reflective comment: I think gathering photos like this is important to location where our shots are going to be and how we can try to control the lighting. It also allows us to plan what we're doing alot more if we have already visited an area. 

Red Riding Hood First Test Footage

Me, Fabian, Wil and our friend went out to our location to film some test footage. We compared me as the actor and Joe as the actor. The following videos shows us comparing the footage and the footage itself.

Joe Brown Test Footage 

Jack Cullum Test Footage

Wil Allen Aerial Footage

Lumberjack Comparison Footage

Reflective comment: After comparing the two actors that we had selected we decided to go with me, Jack, mainly due to the fact that we think Joe suited better the role of the Bad Wolf. However it seems unlikely he will be able to play even this role due to the fact that he goes to a different sixth form, and cannot fit in with our schedule. 

First footage filmed

Yesterday (The 9th), Me, Fabian, Wil and our friend Joe went out and filmed about thirty seconds of footage. We filmed the Lumberjack waking up and narrating, setting up the rest of the film. Before this scene would be the nightmare and after this scene would be the confrontation with the Bad Wolf and his actors.

We filmed the footage twice. Once with me acting as the Lumberjack and once with our friend Joe acting as the Lumberjack. We're not sure who is better suited to play the role so we thought we would shoot us both playing the part, and with the footage we got we would select which actor better suited the role. Whoever doesn't get the part will end up playing the Bad Wolf either way.

I will soon have the footage of me and Joe and I will edit them to play next to eachother. This way our group can compare. I will put this footage on the blog with our thoughts in the next following day.

                 

Over all the day went very well. We arrived at our location at about ten o'clock and we were done by about 11 o'clock. Me and Joe got to practice the role, and I got to see the script I had written in action. It was also my first chance to direct since a production we had made at GCSE level. So it was good to get back to what I'm good at, making sure what I had envisioned was coming to fruition. While it was nothing to complex due to the nature of the script, I still made sure that things were being done the way I had imagined.

Fabian also got to get his camera out and record and take photos. When recording we done the shots several times, and Fabian would record with different shots and from different distances. He was determined to get the correct shots and took some great photographs of the location and of me and Joe as the Lumberjack.

Wil also came along and got to test his quad copter. He was able to record footage of the location from in the sky, which gave us a better look of our location and what surrounded it. I also think coming along helped Wil understand what type of feel and mood the OTS would have to itself, which will help him when it comes to producing the music.

It was a great day out and we all managed to get quite a bit of work done. While we would like to film these parts again and to refine them, since we have the footage filmed it is now on the bottom of our to do list. Before we can think about doing reshoots we need to have filmed the remaining footage, made a rough edit and created the studio ident. Once we have done this we can consider going back and filming the footage again.

Reflective comment: We had a great day production wise, and I don't think there was much more we could do to improve what we were able to do. If we are able to film these parts again, we could bring more props to better improve the Mise En Scene.

Foley Task

                    

Above is our foley Task. We have learnt several things after doing this task. I personally have learnt that I need to better manage my time, as I left this task a little late and therefore I couldn't create the sound effects as well I wanted. We decided after this task that Wil would be stepping down as head of Foley and that we will all work together on Foley, as Wil is not entirely comfortable with being entirely in charge of Foley.

I think some of our best sounds are the following...

• Shell Cases Dropping
• Beeping
• Table Dragging
• Drilling
• Wind
• Heavy Breathing
• Walking

And I think some of our worse sounds are the following...

• Rustling Cases
• Pack Running
• Wind Turbines
• High pitched growl

I believe that it's pretty clear where our group stands on foley. Fabian took the time and knew what he was doing. I had left mine last minute, but I still believe I managed to create some decent sounds. Wil had tried but he just couldn't quite get it right.

 Reflective comment: As a group we were thinking about adding a lot of our sound post production. After this task I think that we need to reconsider this, and perhaps try to capture more sound while filming. Either that or pre-plan what we're going to add post production and make sure we can recreate the sounds before we film.

Jack

Storyboarding

Our group created two sets of storyboards for our scenes, one drawn and then one with photos. I drew some very rough sketches so we could get a vague idea of what we wanted. After this Fabian suggested that we take photos and create a second storyboard. This storyboard, done with actual photos ended up being much better as it made much easier to show what we wanted to create.

Here are the first three drawn storyboards that we created.

As you can see they were very basic and needed to be expanded on. This is why Fabian suggested that we do them again. Below you can see the photo storyboards.

What I've done over the Christmas holidays

Before I left for the holidays I set myself and my group some targets to complete over the holidays to stay on track to complete our OTS on time.

I set myself the following goals.

• Scout Locations with Fabian
• Experiment with Foley
• Start writing the script and get over half finished

I had the stretch goal of finishing the script. However I have managed to achieve all of my goals! Me and Fabian scouted out a location for filming and experimented a little bit with Foley. Here are two videos for evidence of this fact. (The Password for the video is : wordup )

                 
                 

I also finished the script completely, at least the first drat. I need to make a few changes to fix it up a bit but after that we'll have our script completely finished!

I set Fabian the goals of...

• Scout locations with Jack
• Research and Acquire equipment (Mics and Lighting)
• Produce some test shots, experimenting with different angels

With the stretch goal of starting the studio ident. Fabian has done all of his goals except from his stretch, but he has started planning for it!  He scouted locations with me, which he found online, he has done research into what he believes we could use and while we were scouting the locations Fabian tested some different camera shots.

Wil had the goals of...

• Finishing the first song for the nightmare sequence.
• Look into what props we use for different characters.
• Also look in character costume.

Wil had the stretch goal of finishing another song. 

Wil has completed two of his goals and his stretch goal. While he hasn't completed the first song he has managed to complete another song which we are going to use in our OTS. Wil also has competed his character design and prop work, which you can find on his blog.

Overall we've had a very proactive Christmas holiday and are making good progress with our final production. We're actually going to start filming this Saturday, on the ninth. We plan also to scout more locations and test more Foley.

Jack