Soundtrack

Our soundtrack was compramised of several layers put together. In total i used eleven layers put together, fading them in and out at the right parts. I used ten samples and on some of them i changed the effects. On one of the samples i added some gate to it and some overdrive to make it seem a bit 'trippy'. I was also going to flange it a bit but this came across to alienated. I chose the samples i did because i wanted to create a RnB soundtrack with a bit of trance/techno. Some of the trance/techno was in the alcohol scenes because i wanted things to seem slightly longer. The music i created was aimed more towards teenagers because a lot of teenagers listen to trance and RnB. Some of the samples i selected were trance and others were RnB or Electric Drum Beats. In one of the scenes we changed the beat for when Rosie puts some music on; giving the impression that this is the music she is listening to.

Rough Cut

A lot of our rough cut had to be edited although it was only a rough cut. In many of our scenes we had began filming too soon so we had the setting up of the shot on film. Also as we had filmed our sequence in the wrong order due to the weather conditions, this meant that we had to change the order in our rough cut in order for it to make sense. We had a few scenes where the character looked at the camera, which made it seem under cuts the realism which we were trying to achieve. we realized that we have got a few scenes which need to be improved, so we are going to re shoot these on Tuesday. We also want our final cut to be longer so we are going to add in a few shots too, this should not take too long but will improve our final sequence.

Half Term Events

Picking Up of Equipment:
On Wednesday of the half term we both went to collect the equipment from college so we could film the scenes out of college, we wanted to pick it up during half term because this allowed us to film during the half term days, making more time for us to edit. As last time we had a very rushed schedule, so we could not film and edit to our full potential. We filmed on the weekend of the half term as this is when the character of Rosie's mum, Caroline was avaliable to film.

Filming outside of college:
As in our last piece of coursework Beth was the main character, I (Beth) was not involved in most of the filming process, so for our film opening, I did all the filming outside of college. However, we all discussed how the shots would be filmed and I took all our opinions into consideraion. One problem we encountered was that we couldn't take our storyboard out of college as the room was closed. Therefore we could not film our scenes exactly as the storyboard suggested, but they are closely based on them as we could remember most of what we had written. We did not have any problems when filming outside of college.

Tom's illness

At the moment, a member of our group is ill; Tom. he hasn't been here all this week so we have had to do filming and blogging on our own. However we have coped very well. we have had to find another boy to take his place as he was a main role in our film.

Camera equipment

As we began filming today we did encounter some problems with the camera equipment. Firstly our tripod was very stiff, which meant it was hard to move the camera in the direction which we wanted in order to create the right shot type. We were going to try and attempt to hand held the camera but this proved to be harder than we thought. Finally we changed our tripod so our filming was successful. Apart from this one problem everything seemed to run smoothly. We were a lot more confident this time filming because we were more familiar with the equipment.

Taking the camera home.

Several of our scenes need to be shot at a house, but as Tom is ill at the moment, we had to include a new character to take his place. We used a table in the refectory as his table at home, and we are going to film at my house and use it as Rosie's house. We had a problem as we all go home before the end of the day, so we can't take the camera home at the end of today. Instead, we are going to collect the camera on the Wednesday of half term and film the scenes we need to and bring it back on the first day back. Once we have filmed at my house, we only need to film a couple of scenes at college which include Rosie and her friends socialising together. When we have done these scenes, we are going to use the final few lessons to edit our scenes and make a rough-cut.

Changes

Due to the icy weather conditions, we had to change the setting of some of our scenes. Scenes 1 and 2 were supposed to be shot on an open green, but we had to change our plans. It is still the same footage, but we had to film in the quad at Long Road because of the solid ground. The only problem we encountered was the people walking across the quad as it is a busy area for students, and the ice made the ground quite slippery.

Filming the first part of our rough opening sequence

This was our first time filming, and we sorted out a few issues we had and made the best of a bad situation. Tom wasn't here as he was ill so we had to find new characters to play the parts, and film with just the 3 of us (Beth, Rosie & I). We spent a while searching for 3 boys to play the parts and eventually found some from another media group. Props weren't a problem as Rosie & I had both bought alcohol bottles from home to use as the teenagers drinking in the park. We then had to find somebody in the college who smokes, and borrow a cigarette so we could give it to the main boy, who Tom was meant to be playing. We had to teach the boys what to do and our main character (Jake Crick) played Tom's part well, taking on board what we said and doing it quickly so we could get the rest of our filming done, so this wasnt a problem.
We had to change our setting from Tom's house to the school canteen, as it would have been a problem for Jake to take the camera home as he had work of his own to do. We changed it so our main character now lives and goes home to an orfans institute (or something of that kind) to make it more realistic.

Character Info;

Character Information:

We have chosen to have a female and a male main character, as well as this fitting in with our story, we wanted to have a female and male because we felt that it would make our film more appealing to both genders. It is more likely that the audience will be able to relate to one of the two main characters this way, making it more realistic and easier to sympathise with the story. We also have some other characters in our film opening, these characters are not focuses

Our first main character is Tom. Tom is a 17 year old boy. He comes from a very rich family, both his parents are very wealthy, however both parents are hardly ever at home, meaning Tom is left in their big house for weeks on end. Money is not an issue for Tom as his parents give him whatever he wants. This is how Tom gets his money for his drug dealing business. Although his parents give him whatever he needs, from a young age they havent been around enough, causing Tom to go off the rails. His house is normally very messy, full of alcohol and occasionally drugs.

Clothing:

• Dark clothes; This is so he doesnt draw too much attention to himself
• Normally hooded; This is to create something shifty about Tom.
• Baggy clothes
• Occasionaly a cap

Our second main character is Rosie. Rosie is also 17, and attends the same school as Tom. Rosie lives with her parents and her sister. She lives a very typical life, and is a very outgoing girl, she is out a lot with her friends.

Clothing:

• Jeans
• T-shirt
• Fashionable
• Made up

Prop list

Prop List;


-Cigarettes
In many of our scenes, Tom is seen smoking/with cigarettes, implying he smokes, even if we never actually show him smoking, the audience will get the impression that he smokes if he is always holding a cigarette or lighting up a cigarette.






-Alcohol bottles (which we be filled with water!)Our very first scene features alchol. Our character Rosie and her friends are drinking alcohol. One of our scenes, is just a close-up of the alcahol bottles, therefore we need to use alcahol bottles as a prop.

Coccaine(obviously not real coccaine!). We may need to have a substance which looks like coccaine,such as sherbert. This is because in one of the scenes, which is filmed in the character of Toms house, we may have some coccaine in the background, to give the audience the impression that he is into drugs. But not give too much away. We just want to give an insight into the character.

All the props which we have used are very relevant to our genre- a British social realist drama. As our story is based around a group of teenagers, we have made them a very typical stereotype of teenagers (much like the TV series skins). This is why alcohol, drugs, and smoking are shown a lot in our opening sequence.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack for our opening sequence is mainly RnB, and eerie at some point. We needed some music that youngsters would listen to, to make sure the target audience knew that it was their type of film. The music we made had a lot of bass and beats, but was quite mellow and slow, to show that the teens were calm whilst drinking. We used bass, with guitar and club beats mixed in. In this day and age, young people who are slightly rough and wear certain clothes would be called chavs, so we used the kind of music that chavs would listen to. The club beat was mixed in to give it a bit of tune and make it lighter.
When our female character (Rosie) sees our male character (Tom), the music gets slightly eerie and we added something in to make it seem abnormal. This works really well with our storyboard as the eerie music is just at the right time for the picture of Rosie looking at Tom.
The beat at the end of the soundtrack was put there seperately to the rest of the bass and tune etc so it could be used to introduce a new scene. For example, Rosie walks home and into a house and goes upstairs to her room. As she is walking towards her room, the bass and tune fade out and we are left with the beat. Rosie then walks to put her stereo on, and the music changes into just the beat, as if that is the music she has put onto her stereo.

Locations

1. An open space (school field). This is where we film the first 9 shots. We chose to film the majority of our shots in an open space, this is because it is very stereotypical of teenagers to be out on public greens, such as parks and recreation grounds. Another British stereotypical view of teenagers is that they are out on these spaces causing trouble, for example; under age drinking. This is what our teenagers are doing during these shots, under-age drinking. This is a main convention of a British social realist drama is to have 'taboo subjects' and we think that underage drinking is a big problem in Great Britain and many people try and believe that it doesn't happen as much as people believe it does. We also chose to film outside because we wanted a variety of shots inside and outside to make our film opening more interesting.

2. Inside shots; inside two rooms in a house. This is so that the audience gets an insight into the characters houses and what their lives are like. It also shows the difference between Rosie and Toms home life, and what kind of background they have both come from. Rosie's house is clean and tidy, and on the other hand, Tom's house is messy and not very clean.

In this lesson we are going to go location scouting so that we can see where the best place to shoot our scenes are.

shooting schedule

FRIDAY 13th February: Around college
-Shot 1; As we need an open space, we are filming on the school field during lesson time
-Shot 2; Following on from shot 1, this is also filmed on the school field
-Shot 3; Same as above
-shot 4; Same as above
-Shot 5; Same as above
-shot 6; Same as above
-Shot 7; Same as above
-Shot 8; Same as above
-Shot 9; Same as above

Out of College filming;
-Shot 10; This is also filmed in Coton (like shot 13). However the majority of indoors filming is in a different room and the outdoors filming is filmed in a different part of Coton, down a small caldesack.
-Shot 11; Same as above
-Shot 12; Same as above
-Shot 13; Coton, Cambridgeshire. This shot is our first shot which is filmed out of college , we have chosen to film this in Rosie's house as her kitchen is currently being re-decorated so it looks very messy and like a building site which is the effect which we wanted for the character of Tom's house. Leading up to the part of the shot in the house, we are filming down the main high street of Coton.
-Shot 14; Rosie's house
-Shot 15;Rosie's kitchen, in her house
-Shot 16; Coton