Preliminary Exercise - Editing and Costume

For our preliminary exercise we are using Adobe Premier Elements CS4 to edit the opening sequence, I am playing the part of the young woman who is the kidnapper.

After discussion we decided that the text should be inspired by Schindler's List with the girl in red and chose to use the same effect in our task. This effect is to isolate the colour red solely making the rest of the shot black and white, this brings more emphasis to the red coat and the red lipstick that the actress is wearing.

A Screenshot of Schindler's List

Here is a photo of what the actress was wearing in colour:

By bringing emphasis to the costumes we create more mystery to the character since the audience cannot focus on her facial features giving a mysterious aspect to the piece. Isolating the colour red causes the colour to emphasised which can signify blood, danger, strength and power. It also represents love, desire and passion. In our task we made sure that the more positive thoughts of red were abolished by the director telling the actress to stand up straight and rigid with a businesslike posture, also the director said to keep the actresses head up high to show the power over the other character - the actress was also told not to smile and to keep a straight face when talking to the other character.

Black is another key colour in the costume which is connoted with power, death, evil and mystery. Black is a mysterious colour because of fear and the unknown; which is what the hostage would have felt when seeing her as well as this it has a negative connotation for example: blacklist, black humour and the black death. Also black contrasts well with bright colours so when combined with red it gives an aggressive colour scheme.

Photo of Tom Godfrey who plays the hostage:

For our hostage, Tom Godfrey, his costume included a blue, white and dark purple striped t-shirt with black trousers and black converses. Blue can symbolise innocence and purity, along with dark purple which evokes gloom and sad feelings so it can show what the actor is feeling on the inside. Along with the base colour of white which also represents purity and innocence along with goodness. So with his t-shirt compared with the actresses clothing it clearly shows who is the villain and who is the hero.

As a team we chose black trousers and black converses so that it could show a dark side to him and that he has possibly done something bad and that's why the kidnapper has taken him. His clothing is casual to give a first impression of that he is a normal guy on the outside and also that when she kidnapped him when he wasn't prepared.

After discussing we decided not to use the isolated colour effect as it did not always recognise red leaving grey patches and also it highlighted red in other areas which we did not want it to like the curtains and floorboards. However the black and white effect compliments the text and the atmosphere of the piece so we added the effect onto the film.

Using our knowledge of symbolisation to create the costumes for this product will help us because we can choose better costumes in future, therefore improving the quality of our piece.

Preliminary Exercise - Location

For our preliminary task as a team we looked at different locations to film, looking at each with a different criteria in mind. These were the atmosphere, the look of the place and how the accessible the location is.

Originally, when we were first planning and storyboarding our task we had planned for it to start outside panning from a possible thunderstorm and rainy clouds to an alley where you see an iconic walking shot so we searched locally for a similar alleyway that we had initially thought of. I looked at Google maps so that I could find the locations easily and to see if they suited our requirements without having to travel to inspect them first. These were the places we found:

An alleyway in Ottery St Mary, this is next to the Old Mill factory which would allow a pan shot however it is a highly trafficked area with a main road next to it so filtering out the unwanted sound would be a difficulty.

 This is an alleyway in Sidmouth next to the Santander bank, I liked the atmosphere of it - it's very eerie and dark. However it's in the high street and it is very commercialised and clean losing the raw effect that we want.

Here is an alleyway in Tipton St. John, I like the natural and dirty look of the location however we want it to look industrial and not so green also with the public foothpath sign it lessens the effect of danger also the walking shot would not be able to go ahead if I am stumbling over the rocks and roots.

After the alleyway scene we thought that I could be seen walking into an abandoned building, which would have given an eerie and dangerous feel to the piece. The only building that we could find locally which would have suited our needs was the Ottery St. Mary abandoned mill factory however we did look at other buildings to see if they matched what we wanted. This are shown below:

This is what I believe to be the Dairy Crest abandoned factory in Taddiport, nr Great Torrington, it is a big location meaning many places to shoot the film however it would be difficult to travel so far with all of the equipment.



                                         

After searching online for abandoned buildings on www.theurbanexplorer.co.uk I saw a post about Beer Quarry so I went onto Google street maps and found a photo taken by Jim Rider of the quarry. I love the overgrown feel of the location however it would be difficult to create or find an indoor scene because of the natural feel of the location.

When looking through the selection of locations we decided to use the Old Mill Factory with the alleyway next to it to film the scene in, since it's very accessible so we can re-film if we need to.



After discussing we decided not to use the alleyway scene as the weather was unpredictable and as there weren't any thunderstorms near we abandoned the idea, we also decided that if we shot the outside scene and if it was raining or thundering we would need to edit the non-diegetic sound in which would have made it extremely difficult for the editor with the audio clips.

Researching locations to film in will help me and my team in future when searching for locations for our main task because we will be able to assess the problems with the site quickly which causes us to be more time efficient.

Preliminary Exercise

We recently were given the guidelines to the preliminary exercise for the Video section of the Media Studies AS course.

The Specific Guidelines for the Preliminary Exercise:

Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and 180-degree rule.

I have paired up with Imogen Millard again to complete this project, we are using Adobe Premium Elements CS4 to edit and using a camera similar to the Panosonic LUMIX Digital Camera DMC-SZ10 to film.

Preparation for the Exercise:

I prefer to plan for projects in a list form so I created a document that lists what I need to do for the future.

Andrew Johnstone Talk

On 12/10/15 Andrew Johnstone, the BBC documentary film maker and photo journalist, came to The King's School and gave a lecture about how he got into the entertainment business and how his jobs works.

He has travelled to over 40 different countries for his work as documenting and photographing situations and people. He started his career by making skiing films in France where he would film the skiers and the stunts they performed however he was fired because he had forgotten to tape the camera closed because of this the tape fell out on the snow and was ruined. The next filming opportunity that he was given was one in Yugoslavia where he recorded the civil war in 20, 10 minute films. He then went into photojournalism so that he could more direction in what he was filming, during this time he was in Bosnia photographing the election - these photos were then featured in The Times Magazine. In 2003, the globalisation of photography meant that there were less assignments because "why send a photographer over to India when an Indian person can send the photo to the company?" Because of this he then went back into documentary film making and producing, he now works with BBC Plymouth where he films the Inside Out section. He has recently made a film which linked Napoleon to the South West of England and his film about James Bond has just been commissioned.


After talking about how he got into the entertainment business he then showed us his equipment that he uses when filming. There was a camera, a microphone, a light box and a tripod.

He then talked about a mantra that when filming the skiers in the Alps was given to him - he said it was very helpful, he called it 'The 7 Ps'.

"Prior Preparation Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance."

He also showed us his timetable and how he plans the filming out, with predicting how the interviewee will answer the question - this then helps him stick to a schedule and keep working productively so that he can keep to a deadline. I really like this method and will most likely use it in future.

This visit has made me learn about documentary making and photojournalism, also the amount of work that goes into a film. As well as some techniques that will be very useful in future when film making like the buffering of a microphone.