Filming 23/02

As we decided in our previous filming session to have more shots of the female figure, we spent some time before filming to think about what shots we could add in. After deciding to have some shots outside over Brogan's balcony, we considered whether it would be too cliché for a film Noir. However, many films have repetitive conventions and we felt that if it connoted the females dominance and made sense when put next to our other shots it would be fine, although we plan to ask the teacher when we're back at school for guidance as to whether it's a good idea or not. After looking back at our research on Film Noir films it became apparent that they use quite weird and different shots and we felt that we would try and experiment using this knowledge. We had a shot of a wine glass being put on top of the camera, allowing it to seem as though it was being placed on a surface, again as we are unsure as to whether the shots are good, we are going to ask for feedback from the teacher. We had a two shot of the female speaking to a male bodyguard, however as the male was much taller than the female we were unsure of how to make the female look dominant. We decided to shoot the two shot with the camera facing more to the female, and have the male walk away whilst the female doesn't move.

Filming 20/02

In this filming session we tried to get a few shots of the victim being dragged in, we first chose Tom to be dragged in by Brogan and Sam, but as Tom is taller than Sam we switched around their roles to connote the bodyguards dominance over the victim. We also began shooting in one location, but realised that it was quite difficult to view shadows in the shot which is a very important aspect of Film Noir. Due to this mishap we decided to rethink our location and set it in the conservatory where the female is filmed, as it's much easier to create shadows etc. As we were limited on time we decided to postpone the filming as we would have to reshoot all of the shots we filmed that evening. We wanted a range of shots as the males entered the room, but we didn't want the characters to appear more dominant than the female, meaning that we considered having more and longer shots of the female, as this means that she will have more onscreen time connoting importance and superiority.

Film Noir Typography

When researching Film Noir typography, I came across this video which has many examples of typography that's seen in Film Noir genre films, it allowed me to gain knowledge as to what font styles are seen in the films. The majority of Film Noir's use a Serif style font, meaning that there are strokes on the edges creating a mysterious and classy effect, reinforcing the overall connotations of the film; by using this style of font in the opening it informs the audience of what type of Film Noir they're going to be watching, foreshadowing the atmosphere that will be created.

Comparisons to 'Sin City'

For our opening we used Frank Miller's Film Noir 'Sin City' as a guideline to help us. As I analysed this opening at the beginning of my research, it allowed me to understand the conventions necessary for a Film Noir; this allowed me to apply this knowledge to our opening, by using similar techniques and shots to connote the females dominance. Our opening shot was a low angle shot of the female looking over a balcony, meaning that the female is the first person in the opening they see, connoting her authoritative status. We were unsure whether this would be too cliché, however a repetitive use of conventions is often what makes films successful. With this in mind we chose to keep the shot, however vary the other shots so it wasn't too similar to 'Sin City'. As well as this, whilst 'Sin City' uses cigarettes as a prop to iconically suggest toughness, we used a glass of wine to iconically connote the females dominant yet elegant character.

Individual Progression

Since the starting of the AS media coursework, I feel that I have improved vastly. I began with little knowledge and understanding about films, however I am now able to distinguish genres and sub-genres easily allowing me to apply this knowledge to my coursework. As well as this, when we first began filming I had difficulty in keeping a steady hand when using the camera, I was much better after the continuity task but I feel that I've progressed even more since filming the actual opening; as no one in my group is especially skilled at using the camera, I think that having some experience with the camera makes it much easier for the group to progress, as I can have some input as to how the camera should be positioned to make the shot effective.

Feedback & Changes

Feedback
After receiving feedback from the teacher, it allowed the group to realise that we were focusing more on less important aspects of the opening instead of the essential parts; we were spending too much time focusing on a plot than the actual shots themselves, hindering our progress. Our planning was less specific and detailed as we thought, especially our shooting schedule meaning that it was more difficult for us to get along with the filming than first expected. Our opening has changed vastly since we created our animatic, and whilst this could be seen as a bad move as it meant we didn't have a series of images which we could use as a guideline, it allowed us to understand the positives and negatives with our animatic and develop from this. It was evident that whilst our animatic was clear in the shots we were going to use, it had too much of a plot which isn't what the opening to a film should consist of. With this in mind, we focused more on getting a good series of images than a plot.

Changes
New Character Profile:
Heather Casey
Age: 16
Unfortunately, as our previous actress was ill, we felt that it was best to change the actress as we needed to be able to film fairly quickly, and also have time to do reshoots as well. It made sense to change the actress to someone who is part of the group, as it would be much easier to plan and organise any extra reshoots that were necessary.

Female Protagonist

Elegant clothing - black dress, heels

Main character in opening, dominance connoted through low angles, close ups, and POV shots.

Filming 16/02

Due to our first actress being ill we had to change the actresses, and whilst making this change we decided to change some of our shots as well. We thought it was a risky decision, but felt that with a much more sturdy shot list and plan we'd be able to work much quicker and more effectively. We varied our location and had less shots in the same place as we didn't want the audience to lose interest. We paid close attention to angles, as they are very significant in Film Noir genres, as they connote the importance and status of the characters. As our male actors were unable to attend we had to change our shooting plan slightly as we intended to shoot most of their shots. We decided to shoot the majority of the female characters shots, as this meant that we didn't waste our session, and that we could postpone the male actors filming for another time. Another aspect of the opening we decided to change was our props; we were first using cigarettes throughout the opening to iconically represent the females boisterous attitude, however we felt that a glass of wine created a more elegant atmosphere whilst still allowing the female to appear dominant and powerful.

Filming 02/02

As we gained feedback from our first filming session, it made our second filming session much more productive than our first. We knew what shots we needed allowing us to spend less time discussing what we were doing, and more time filming. We specifically tried to focus on filming using different angles, especially low angles to connote the females significance in the opening. However, as the female character mainly stays in the same place throughout the opening, we found it quite difficult to think of ways we could show her as a dominant character. We used many close ups and long shots of her to increase her on-screen time, which ultimately connotes importance and dominance. However, we realised that as our other actors were not available to film, there was not the diegetic sound of the men playing pool and talking. We attempted to create the sounds, however we felt that it would sound much better with the actual male actors. On the other hand, we considered using non-diegetic sound accessed from copyright free websites, however we are undecided on what option we are going to take as of yet, meaning we will experiment with both ways and evaluate them to see what is best.

Filming 31/1

In our first filming session we tried to shoot the first few shots that were seen in our animatic, after realising that we could use new shots such as long shots and mid shots to create more variety, we began to consider our audience more and what they want to see. We also realised that we were not as prepared and organised as we thought, we knew we were going to be shooting Falcon but as we did not have the animatic with us we found it difficult to remember what shots we were supposed to shoot. When we next film we will make sure that we have access to our animatic, and discuss what we plan to do before the filming session, as it means we won't waste as much time, and hopefully filming the shots will be less time consuming, leaving us more time to focus on the smaller aspects of the opening such as continuity errors.

Points to consider:

- Think about time, how long we have to film etc.

- Organise and know what shots we will be shooting in that particular session

- Assign jobs to the group to make the production less time consuming and allow more time for editing

Shooting Schedule

Animatic

Throughout the production of the animatic we came across many issues, causing the process to be much harder than we expected. We particularly struggled with drawing the images so that the audience could understand them and have questions at the end, ultimately engaging them and have them wanting to see more. To overcome this problem we had others watch the opening and we'd then ask them what they gathered from the range of images, if they were still unsure we would edit the images or add more images until they understood. Another problem we faced was applying music and sounds to the opening, it was fairly difficult to find sounds which were copyright free, and fit correspondingly to the action.