Editing Post - 27th February

Today is the day we are going to start with the majority of our editing.

Previously, Jake and I have done a brief piece of editing with the very beginning of our film, and today we are hoping to make a lot of progress.

Recording Session Review

We did our filming on February 12th. The session lasted for about 7 and a half hours and was our only session we recorded in. I arrived at Joe's for about 11, an hour before the "actors" were told to arrive. This hour was to set up the web cam, and film some brief example shots in Joe's bedroom.

Our actors started to arrive around 12, so after their head shots were taken, it was time to start filming.

Joe also supplied several "nerd shirts" for our actors in case they weren't wearing one.

We started filming with Nathan's interview. This was one of the harder interviews to film, as it was the first one and we couldn't stop laughing, although final footage was good.

Filming started off well, and we were confident for a good session.

Next was Sean for his interview, Sean had bought some of his own props, and these were comedic so we aloud him to wear them. Sean added a fairly posh voice for his character and this was also comedic so we let him do so for the rest of the time. We filmed about 3 clips of Sean's first interview.

After taking a short break to watch the clips to see if they were of standard, it was time to film Joe. Joe had a funny shot where he had to storm off swearing after saying how peaceful gaming can be, which we hope portrays the irony we were trying to capture.

So after about an hour, filming was going very well and Joe and I were looking forward to trying some more advanced shots.

It was then my time to be filmed, and we altrered this shot quite a bit, as we wanted to add more irony. So we took about 5 or 6 clips filming this as we had to find an approiate joke for this shot.

Once again, another short break was taken to check footage, and Joe did a quick little vlog to summarise the first part of this session.

The fifth interview was Luis, he was fairly shy of being on camera and we couldn't blame him, but he did well and acted like a proper "nerd".

The final interview we wanted to film was George, which wasn't actually an interview but trying to find george for an interview. Adding more random humour to our film hopefully.

We then stop for a lunch break for about 45 minutes then resumed filming on a HYDC round table discussion. I liked filming this sequence as it had a really smooth 360 shot that Joe and I did, but unfortunately, I don't think we can use this sequence in our opening becuase it is too long.

Then came probably the hardest thing we shot. Joe and I had several different ideas on how we wanted the "actors" to answer the question "have you ever had a girlfriend?"

We tried a sequence were the first person who was interviewed, Nathan, repeated the question and looked confused, then it cuts to the other "nerds" looking confused like they had been asked that question.

We also tried a shot where it panned around the room looking at all the nerds being confused, but this was hard as their was no way that Joe or I could pan the camera and still be in the shot in our places.

The final idea was to set the camera up on its own, and have all of use sit on the settee and say girlfriend and looked confused at each other. This was extremely hard to film! We were all having fun with this one, not knowing when to say girlfriend and generally just messing up. In the end, we had about 12 minutes of footage for this one shot.

Joe and I then also wanted to capture some more footage in case we wanted to use it. So we tried a shto where Joe answers the door to let us all in, just in case we wanted it and also Joe and I did a little sequence of Joe getting out of bed at 5 in the afternoon, then going downstairs and letting us straight in.

It would probably have some better editing and variation of shots if we use these two clips, and add more variation then just interview after interview.

At about 6 in the evening, filming was finished and it was time to say goodbye to our actors after a great filming session.

Unfortunately though, later that evening Joe told me that the 7 and a half hours of footage from the web cam we had in the corner of the room didn't save, which wasn't too bad, but we had some plans to edit that together and add some unique footage in the blog. Wasn't a real problem though.

Overall, the recording session went really well, we got loads of clips we can use and we had a really good laugh recording, so hopefully our end product is the same.

Finished Production Logo

This is our finished production logo, it differs from the previous versions quite severely, as we did not want our Production company name to be HYDC as well as our team name, so we took an inside joke of ours, in which we would greet each other with "E5Y" and it became our production company, and gave it a clever and silly name. "E5Y" stands for "Entertainment 4 You, but it's so good it's Entertainment 5 You".

Previously, the opening was going to be a long sequence in which I  travel along a track, but instead, I dug a hole to a cave, in which I made the E5Y logo, then fell down to it.

I made this on Minecraft, a game in which you can build anything you like with blocks. As it's a game that appeals to children, it somewhat fits our silly comedy theme. After I had recorded it, I added my voiceover to the clip to add another element to it, then added the title over it.

Filming day microblog

Yep, filming day is here and we will be updating the blog with small updates here and there.

11:04 - Setting up filming, waiting for our "actors"

11:47 - recorded some sound from Call of Duty to use in our film.

12:08 - our "actors" actually start arriving.

12:09 - George headshot done.

12:12 - Luis and Sean arrived.

12:15 - Luis and Sean headshot done.

12:31 - Nathan arrives late as usual.

12:34 - Nathan headshot done.

12:38 - Starting Nathan's first interview filming.

12:59 - Recording done for Nathan's interview.

13:00 - Filming for Sean's interview starts.

13:10 - Footage for Sean got.

13:14 - Filming for Joe's interview starts.

13:23 - Filming finishes for Joe.

13:28 - Filming for Jake starts.

13:41 - Filming finishes.

13:45 - Taking a short break.

14:00 - Break over.

14:02 - Filming for Luis starts.

14:17 - Luis done.

14:23 - George goes missing.

14:25 - George returns and starts filming.

14:35 - Filming for George done.

14:45 - Lunch break.

15:30 - Starting recording again.

16:12 - Finish interesting round table discussion filming.

16:28 - Girlfriend?!?

16:35 - Girlfriend scenes record.

16:40 - Re-watching footage.

17:10 - Recording us entering Joe's house.

17:22 - Got the footage.

17:30 - Filming sequence of Joe waking up.

17:58 - Got the sequence with few clips.

18:00 - Start importing footage to Joe's mac.

18:21 - Actors start to leave.

19:16 - Import finishes.

19:27 - Web cam footage didn't save.

Final Decision on Scenario

Before the day of filming, Joe and I decided on what our final scenario will be.

Out of the few ideas we had brainstormed, we decided to do the "Day in the Life" scenario, where we briefly show what a day is like for us.

We thought this idea would be best, as it would be easier to film, and easier for our "actors" to act as they are not actual actors, so a normal role that they are used to would be better for the quality.

This is the best decision for our film, as we can also add more effects, cuts and transitions rather then just interviews.

Rethinking the scenario

We have considered changing our film slightly so that we can have a more believable story, as some feedback we received was that a reunion isn't incredibly believable as after the opening there would not be much more to happen, so we drew up a brain storm to see the different ideas.

Music

In our film, music may be a big issue. We are not aloud to use any copyrighted music, which may affect the choices we'll make.

Luckily, I know of some sources on YouTube that provide copyright free music as long as they are credited, so this will help us a lot.

The artists I know we can use are:

Eoin O'Brien - http://www.youtube.com/user/EoinOBroinMusic

Example song:

Approaching Nirvana - www.youtube.com/user/approachingnirvana

Example song:

Both of these artists produce good music, the type we are looing to use, and we should be able to use their songs as long as we credit them, simply by mentioning 'Music by Noisestorm' or 'Music by Approaching Nirvana'.

The idea of using cover songs from http://www.soundcloud.com/ or from YouTube is very beneficial to Joe and I.

Joe's Vlog 6th February

Joe did a vlog on:

 - The Star Trek prop
 - Setting of the film
 - Experimentation shots

and some other random ideas

Exemplar Work

On the February 8th, in class we watched 3 different films made by pupils from other schools. We had an example of the mark scheme and had to mark the 3 films on a level basis.

Here is the marks and ratings we gave to each of videos.

This helped us get a better idea of the kind of things examiners are looking for and how to get the marks needed.

Titles

For our genre of film, it is very important that the title reflects this genre. Light hearted comedy films normally have light coloured, bubbly font for their title.
Here are some examples from 'Office Space'

Obviously, this style of font isn't going to be used for a horror film, as it simply just doesn't portray the genre.

Here are some examples of titles from non-comedic films. The bold text is simple on the other hand, and arguably could be any genre, but in this case the film is a drama, Trainspotting.

 The simple white text doesn't over complicate the genre, and in this case doesn't give away the genre, up until the end of the opening sequence, this film could have been a comedy.

The font used in this screenshot is from Sweeney Todd, a horror film. The chilling font again that this film probably won't be a comedy, this is supported by the dark colours in the background and contrast with the text.

Here are some more examples from influences we have had. The Other Guys is a wierd example for titles, as the film has a mixed genre of action and comedy. The obvious comedy aspects are more the characters then the title in this scene, and the theme of action is presented through the title.

The next example is from Step Brothers. This is the type of title we are looking to produce, a simple black background with bubbly text. This technique works well in comedy films and portrays the theme well.

Although, this technique is what we will probably use for the simple production screen after our production company intro, and the title of the film may be produced in another way.

We will mock up some examples of our own with different texts and post in it another post.

Target Audience Vlog

This was our blog for our target audience, uploaded a few weeks too late.

Schedule

On February 3rd, I planned out times and locations on our schedule sheet. This also included the date we are recording on. This schedule will be beneficial for us as it will help us manage our time.

Animated Storyboard

This video involves the second draft of our storyboard which we edited together in iMovie.

We improved on our first draft simply by doing more detailed drawings to get a better idea of the shots whilst the original storyboard was more aimed at showing the general gist of how our opening scene was going to look. We animated it to make it all look more clean and we tried to add Ken Burns effects to certain boards to portray effects like pans and zooms, we found it quite tricky using the new iMovie software and will most likely use the older version when it comes to editing the final opening.