Today we have put all of our footage on to the network and have started editing some of our ending scenes. We are hoping to have at least three possible endings for our film.
Amy bringing Sam flowers to apologise - shows he is still trapped
Laura bringing Sam flowers - shows he may have a way out of the violence
Amy turning up to blame him for the violence
We wanted to have as many possible endings as we could so that we can ask for feedback on our Facebook page. This will enable us to make our film more appealing to our target audience, as the majority of people giving feedback fit the demographic which we are aiming at.
Breaking the 180 degree rule when filming can often leave the audience feeling confused or disorientating. Soemtimes fimmakers do this purposefully to acheive this affect on the audience, however this can sometimes happen by accident. When editing the third flashback, we realised that we broke the 180 degree rule during the reverse shot showing the dialogue between Sam and Amy. We positioned the camera on the wrong side of Sam. Luckily there was a way we could change this without having to reshoot. When editing we could use the effect 'Flop' (under 'Video filters'...'Perspective') which turned the screen around. This meant Amy was on the right side, however it did result in a continuity error of Meg's (playing Amy) fringe being on the wrong side from the previous shots. However we would rather that this subtle error than breaking the 180 degree rule.
Today we filmed the final sequence of our short film at the Audrey Emerton building in Brighton. We were able to use props such as a hospital bed, a drip and a heart monitor which made the scene much more realistic in terms of mise en scene. We filmed many different endings for our film as we want to receive feedback on different edits before we choose one to be our final decision for the ending.
After various comments about how realistic the bruise on Mark's face Megan talks through how she has taken the comments on board to create a more realistic bruise.
Interview with Kate Rogers, a nurse within the county.
We also had the privilege of speaking to Kate Rogers, the nurse who kindly gave us the permission to film in the training centre for medical students. We felt it would be useful for us to gauge a feel of how domestic abuse cases are encountered in real life. We began by asking her just how common domestic violence cases are on hospital wards.
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Above is an image we took of a screen which said which rooms were booked and who by, as you can see we are the "College Students filming"
We have received some audience feedback in relation to the opening sequence that we uploaded. The feedback on the whole is positive and shows us the feeling of excitement and optimism that surrounds our finishing product.
You can view the feedback in this video below.
From the feedback we will address the things that have been pointed out.
Bruising: although there have been comments about it not looking realistic we feel that this will not detract from our point on conveying someone who has been domestically violence. But we are grateful for the comments so before filming tomorrow we will ensure the bruise looks as realistic as possible.
Sound: A lack of sound was also questioned, something that we will deal with by recording Foley sounds and creating our overall soundtrack.
Random Car Shot: The random car shot will also be next to another sequence, at the moment it doesn't make sense.
As Mark has already outlined in his domestic violence Coronation Street currently have a story which centers on domestic violence, similar to our short film the plot will centre around the male being the victim. After watching the episode tonight there are some positive things that I feel we can take from tonight's episode that we have recorded in our short film.
The video above shows how Kirsty takes out anger on Tyrone jealous at the fact that Tyrone spoke with Fiz. The close-up shots in Coronation Street tonight show the facial expressions of the characters, similar to the shots of our short film where we show Amy exerting force on Sam before having close up shots showing the pain and anger.
Coronation Street uses shots of Tyrone mobile phones to show the possessiveness that Kirsty holds over him. In our short film Amy constantly texts and phones Sam as she wants to know what Sam is doing 24/7.
We also have shots that show the facial expression of two characters. The two shots allow us to focus on both of the characters and how there actions feature on each other. In Coronation Street Tyrone tries to be affectionate to try and stop Kirsty's tempers flare, the two shot shows Sam trying to be nice to Amy by reaching out of her hand before Amy hits Sam with a cushion.
Coronation Street also has a third character, "Fiz" who tries to help Tyrone. Fiz also acts as a catalyst for a confrontation between Tyrone and Kirsty after Kirsty gets jealous. In our media a meeting between Sam, Amy and Laura results in Amy getting incredibly jealous and possessive and lashing out at Sam.
Coronation Street has several episodes a week which means it can run storyline for months, this means that it can pan out a storyline for months. Our film is five minutes long which as a result means we need to include various signs of a deteriorating relationship, the flashback set up of our film will allow us to do this by modifying the date on several shots.
One thing that I also noticed from Coronation Street was that on the end board was a support number. Mark originally posted this in his research but we could potentially show it at the end of our media film as an add on to the closing sequence. This just another possibility for our short film. It would also bring awareness to the campaign to stop domestic violence. After watching tonight's episode I now feel confident that our short film will be realistic after watching the conventions of tonight's episode. You can view the episode on ITV Player.
We have been busy editing and already have compiled a rough cut of the dinner flashback which you can view below.
We are now well into editing, all of our footage from the past few weeks has been uploaded onto our systems and now we are trailing through the footage and beginning to make rough cuts like the one above. We did a quick vlog just to give you more information on the editing process as well as information on what we will be filming tomorrow and what we filmed today.
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Below is the beginning of our short film, it is only rough at the minute as we still have some clips that need to be put in and some audio is missing, but so far is looking good.
Friday's filming turned out to be quite successful as we finished all the scenes we needed to film in Laura's house. We now only have to film the college scene which we will be doing on Monday, and the hospital scene which we will be doing on Thursday. Then we plan on going over all of our footage and putting together a few more test scenes to see if we need to re-film anything. We have also filmed a few different versions of some scenes that we will edit together and then ask for feedback on which ones work best for our film.
We share our thoughts on finishing the inside sequences.
Megan talks to James about the days' filming.
Mark talks to Laura about camera shots, angles and lighting decisions.
We had an extremely productive filming session on Thursday 13th December, we completed various sequences including the third flashback where Sam and Amy bump into Laura resulting in confrontation, the sequence which leads up to Sam ringing up for help and we also touched up on some exterior shots of Sam getting in the car. As ever we were there with our phones and have created a series of vlogs to give you an insight into the days' filming.
Our thoughts at the end of the day.
After spending an hour and half outside in the cold we warm up and reflect on the filming.
We reflect half way through the day on our progress.
Character Vlogs
To establish a sense of what our actors felt about playing our characters we have recorded two further vlogs which allow Megan and mark to add their comment on how they portray their characters.
During the scene of the second flashback, we thought carefully about Sam's dialogue. He has used repetition of the sentence :"I do like it". This shows he does not know what else to say, and that he is perhaps intimidated by her. The body language furthers this as we see he flinches throughout this scene, once when he is being hit by the pillow, another when she does not actually go to hurt him, but she pulls her arm back. This also shows his scared feelings, and the fact that it is repeated allows the audience to infer that it has now become a natural reaction for him to flinch from her, suggesting her abusive nature. We will have him flinching throughout the later flashbacks to reiterate this.
Body Language:
He shows confident body language when he is with his friends, as well as in the dialogue, as they often call each other "mate" showing comradery. But also with the way they say they will "go out on the pull", this suggests that they are stereotypical 'lads' who go out with each other, 'picking up girls'. He even appears confident at home, when he is by himself, as he shows independence with the way he is staying at home by himself, cooking dinner. This is even shown with the way he says "cheers mum", he is showing a close family relationship. This confident body language reflects his confident characteristic and also shapes the way the audience feel about him. We
Amy's character profile...
Dialogue:
When filming we thought carefully about her dialogue, an example is the first flashback, when Amy walks in after texting her mum. Originally we had her say "I've asked my mum if I can stay late", we then wanted to shorten this sentence as it wasn't important, so we then had her say "mum said I can stay late". However after analysing the lexis in this sentence, we realised there is no powerful language to show Amy's dominance. In the end we changed this part of the script and reshot the scene, with Amy saying "I've told mum I'll be home late". This an assertive declarative showing her dominance, even in her family life, not just in their relationship. The contractions used throughout the script also reiterate the social group we are representing: teenagers. This is because contractions are perceived as an element of informalisation which is predominant amongst teen slang. This will contrast with the language that the news presenters use because as part of their occupation they need to use formal language.
We decided to do a couple of test scenes using the shots that we have so far. This one uses shots from various angles in the second flashback of Sam and Amy.
This shot shows a rough version of the transition we will be using from the cupboard upstairs to the fridge downstairs.
Another problem we faced was during the flashback scene between Sam and Amy. We had to fold the LCD screen into the camera so that we could move it as if from Sam's point of view without having it reflect in the photo frame. This caused some issues for us, as we are able to see here. We were unable to see exactly where the camera was pointing so we ended up with a shot of the room rather than a shot of the photo frame. However, this ended up being quite useful as we realised that our equipment was visible in the frame of the rest of our shots.
When reviewing our footage so far, today, we noticed a few more problems. Two of which are errors that cannot be changed, so we will either have to reshoot or crop the image. Firstly, when doing a tracking shot of Sam walking to his car, we were so concerned about people being in the background that we actually left the tripod, which we weren't using as part of handheld tracking, in the shot. Sam actually walks past it at one point, so we're not quite sure how no one realised it! Luckily it wasn't in the whole of the frame so it can easily be cropped, or if we get time we will reshoot, next time making sure our equipment is entirely out of view. Secondly, we were using our actor who play's Sam, Mark's car. In his car there are two small license plates that say 'Mark', now we remembered to take the one in the rear window out as we started with the shots of the back of the car. However, there is still one in the back of the car. We assumed this would be alright as you only see the front of the car, yet there is one shot we had where Sam was driving, so we can see over his shouldher into the back, where the plate comes into the frame. This only happened in one part of the shot so we can always cut the shot down, or we can always crop or reshoot. This is most definitely unuseable though as it completely contradicts the identity of our main character.
We have now filmed various sequences for our opening. We spent much of Thursday afternoon and evening building up a character for Sam by applying costume and make up to show signs of domestic abuse. We will now continue filming throughout Friday to get more of the film completed. Below are a series of images and videos that show us working towards some of the shots that we produced yesterday. You can view all of our shots and images as well as posts taking you behind the scenes on our dedicated page here.
We give our thoughts on the days' filming.
Mark and Megan prepare for one of the flashbacks.
James and Mark set up the Tripod.
Laura, Mark and Megan prepare the lighting equipment.
Megan and Laura begin to build Sam's character.
James sets up lighting.
Laura and Mark prepare for a shot taken through the shower.
We are now fully prepared to start filming during tomorrow lesson. In today's lesson we thought it would be a good idea to practise some of the shots ready for tomorrow. Below are videos of the footage compiled during today's lesson in addition to a video of us recording the test shots. Video 1: We first tested some shots of Mark looking in the mirror, the sequence in the production will show Sam (played by Mark) opening a cabinet to reveal the bruise created by his girlfriend.
Video 2: We then recorded some footage that will resemble a match on action sequence in our short film. The match on action sequence works by positioning the camera in the cabinet, for today we used a cupboard and a close up shot to show Sam's face.
Video 3: Finally we decided to record some footage to test how we plan to show the titles of our film. Working on the idea of Sam being messaged by Amy constantly we have decided that we will send text messages in a way which shows the roles of our group.
MORE FROM WEDNESDAY 5TH DECEMBER
Watch our video above to find out how exactly we created one of our tested shots.
As a lot of our film will be filmed inside Laura's house, our health and safety considerations here are quite small. However on the shots filmed elsewhere, we will have to take health and safety into account.
College
Hazards:
uneven surfaces - potential to fall/trip
other students - potential to bump into others/be in the way
equipment - could cause strain/injury transporting it around the college
We hope to eliminate these hazards by being mindful of where we set up our equipment. This will mean being out of the way of college exits, and hopefully away from large groups of students. We will also be sensible with the amount of equipment we need, and limit the amount we carry if necessary to avoid injury.
Outside Scenes Hazards:
traffic - risk of being knocked down
uneven surfaces - potential to trip/fall
equipment obscuring pedestrian access
These hazards could be more problematic to eliminate completely, as obviously we cannot control the traffic, but we hope to film in quiet areas where there is not much traffic. We also need to be mindful of where we set up our equipment as we could block access to the pavement, creating problems for the safety of others.
Car Scene Hazards:
getting distracted while driving - potentially dangerous for everyone in the car
not wearing a seatbelt - danger for this person
pedestrians/other vehicles - people walking around the car could cause distraction/might not be seen if the driver is distracted
crashing - risk of serious injury
These are more serious hazards that we need to consider. To help decrease the risk of these hazards, we will need to be very careful about our filming in the car. We will put our safety first when filming, ensuring that we take into account all of the above hazards and produce our film in the correct manner.
We will use a shot reverse shot sequence to show Sam talking to his friends. The sequence will show his mates questioning the bruise on his face and as a result show his mindset when questioned about the bruise.
Sam: Alright Friends: Alright Friend 1: You going to Matts tonight? Sam: No my mum isn't in, have to look after the house. Friend 1: Ah you're such a letdown Sam: sorry mate [PHONE GOES OFF] Friend 2: Is that your bird? [chuckles] Sam: Yeh mate, she's a bit clingy you know? Might have to let her go Friend 1: that's a shame mate but let us know when you do, we'll go out on the pull Friend 2: ah mate you might want to wait for that bruise to go down, no one likes a pussy Sam: Yeah a rugby injury mate
For our storyboard, Megan drew out the storyboards onto Post It notes and we then filmed it. Mark edited it together to produce the final piece. The storyboard is only 4 minutes long as some of the shots we haven't included in the storyboard as some of them are repeated, but the final film will be 5 minutes long as we have to include credits too. For our Animatic, James and Laura completed the voiceovers and Mark edited it in. Again, we used the same Post It notes accomplished by Megan.
Here is the shooting schedule that our group will try and stick to. Obviously things such as timings may effect things, but this skeleton is a rough guide to when and where we will be filming. As a rule of thumb our Wednesday lessons will be used for reviewing footage while Thursday and Friday lessons and any time after will be used for shooting. If we finishing filming any earlier we will of course crack on with editing.
The characters in our film are going to be teenagers, and therefore we have decided to act in our own film. This will mean that we will not have to rely on other people for filming which will make it much easier to meet up. This also allows us to decide exactly how we want our characters to be portrayed and act accordingly.
Roles
Amy (Megan) - Abusive girlfriend
Sam (Mark) - Abused boyfriend
Laura (Laura) - A friend of Sam's
We are also making a radio broadcast for when Sam is in the car which James and Laura will be recording. This broadcast will be a news article on a domestic violence case. We will also need a few more actors to be Sam's friends but we have got that sorted.
Characteristics Sam: Sam appears to be a normal everyday teenager, however on the face of it his personality at the moment is slightly distanced to what we would expect from someone of his age. He is not happy and as a result we allow the audience to interpret this through the series of close ups that we plan to show. The close ups will show his bruising and subdued facial expressions, the only glimmer of happiness we see is when he gets a text from Laura. She acts as a catalyst for happier emotions something that as producers of the film we don't want to show.
Amy: To start with, Amy appears to show the characteristics of an obsessive girlfriend, as she constantly texts Sam to know where he is and what he is doing and that is all the audience know; from that they can set their own assumptions, but I think they will sympathise with her as Sam isn't replying to her texts as he is seen to be the stereotypical male ignoring his girlfriend. The audience start to picture more of Amy when the flashbacks occur; from when they were at their first date when she is seen as being nice, to when she gets gradually worse with Sam and starts to show violence, this is when the audience start to sympathise with Sam. At the end Sam is seen in a hospital bed, and it is up to the audience whether they think Amy put him in there or he killed himself.
Laura: Laura makes one appearance in this film, when Laura walks up to Sam and Amy when they are together. She is seen as a guardian angel, and Sam goes to her when he is in trouble or needs help. She is also used at the end as Sam goes to ring her to ask her for help, but Amy comes in and stops the conversation before he could tell her.
There are many roles to fulfil in our group for our film to be a success. Below are a list of roles we have in our production phase.
Casting Director: James
Storyboard Artist: Megan and Mark
Props: All
Lighting Operator: James and Laura
Location Scout: James
Costume and Make-up: Megan and Mark
Camerawork: James and Laura will be filming throughout as myself and Megan will be acting. They will share the roles of using the camera, holding the whiteboard to say what shot it is and helping each other frame each shot.
Acting: Myself and Megan are the main actors. I will be playing Sam and Megan is playing Amy. We will also need one or two more actors to film when Sam is with his friends. Laura will also be acting as Sam's friend.
After an initial plan of possible locations we have now outlined three key areas we want to film our media, at Laura's house, at a hospital training centre and at college. The first will be at Laura's house where we will film all of the shots that require confrontation between Amy and Sam as well as all of the flash back scenes. College will be used instead of a park to show a conversation with Sam and his friends as we felt this was more realistic to the age group of our characters and in doing this we can introduce the noise and feel of a typical lunchtime as there will be students about. Here is the first location survey for Laura's house:
Here is the second location survey for Haywards Heath College:
Our third location is at the Audrey Emerton Building in Brighton, a centre that provides training for those who wish to pursue a career in the NHS.
Soundtrack We want to incorporate a soundtrack into our short film, so we looked around various websites to find one that we thought would fit in with the mood that we are trying to create. This website proved to be most useful, providing us with a couple of possible soundtracks that we could use.
This song is called Manner of Travelling by Hot Fiction. We came across this song whilst browsing for possible soundtrack ideas for our film, and liked the simplicity of it and the emotions that it evokes. We thought it would work really well with the ideas we have had for our short film, and thought that it could work particularly well in our flashback scenes.
This song is called Heartbeat and conveys similar emotions to the first one. However, we prefer Manner of Travelling, and have decided to use that as the soundtrack for our film.
Foley Sound We have discussed the idea of using Foley sounds in our short film, and have decided that they may be necessary in a couple of places. For example we want sounds of cupboards closing in a couple of our shots, which may need to be added in afterwards to achieve the effects that we want.
Location Issues Most of our shots will be filmed indoors, and therefore sound issues will probably not be too much of a problem. However, we will be filming outside in some cases and here sound may be more problematic. For example, we want to film a scene at college where there will be other people around, so we will have to try and keep our location as secure and quiet as possible, or alternatively we will have to be prepared to add in these sounds in post-production. We are also filming a scene where Sam and Amy walk down a road together, so obviously the sounds of traffic could be a potential problem here. We will have to get around this by finding a relatively quiet road, or if this is not possible then editing this shot slightly so that we see the characters walking somewhere else.
Voyeurism - we will be using this twice. This is when show an image through a reflection. We will be using this in the close up when Sam closes the mirror and looks at his reflection. This is self-deprecating as Sam is reflecting on his life, looking particularly at the bruise he has. This allows the audience to question there is something else to it rather than just a "rugby injury". We also see this when Sam is driving and he looks at himself in the rear view mirror. This is also self-reflecting, furthered with the body language when he puts his head on the steering wheel in frustration and his facial expression of looking sad.
Soundbridge: this is when sounds merge together. We use this at the end when the sound of the dialtone when Sam hangs up, turns into the beeping sound of a cardiac monitor when Sam is in the hospital. This heightens the tension and allows the audience to be surprised when we see the shot of Sam in the hospital. These sounds also signify finality; the phone ending the call, and the hospital showing the end of life. This makes the audience aware that domestic abuse is not final and that people should think more about it.
Shot/ reverse shot: We will use this when he is talking to his friends. Not just to easily show the dialogue, but also to show his closeness with his friends, as they are in the same frame, which will then contrast with the reverse shots of Sam and Amy when they are not both in the frame; showing isolation from each other.
Match on action: we will be using this when Sam gets his dinner out of the fridge. The transition will be moving from a mid shot of the fridge, to a close up of Sam's hand getting the item. This will be functional as it will speed up a sequence that does not necessarily have very good content, but the close up will also help to represent the social group of a teenager as it will establish that it is a microwave meal.
Credits: we wanted to try and make our credits look good, but not detract too much from the film. So as the phone is the main prop we are using, we are going to send texts saying the credits.
Experiments - updated Wednesday 5th December
These shots will be the most difficult for us to do, so today we decided to practise them.
We practised the cupboard shot in different places to try to test the lighting, as well as the practicalities of the shot. We used a bathroom mirror in college to work out the angle we would use so that way we can still see Sam's face but so that you cannot see the camera in the background. We tested this out three times, and in one of the shots the edge of the camera screen went slightly into the frame. If this had happened in our short film we would need to reshoot, so now we will make sure we film this shot a few times, trying different angles in case it happens again.
Video of our mirror sequence experiment.
We also tried out different shots where we altered the zoom to change the composition of where Sam is in the frame. We did this for the mirror shot but also the shot where the camera is in the cupboard. We used a mid shot, a close up and a big close up. In the end we agreed that the big close up was best as it reveals more of Sam's emotion, which is at it's height in this shot when we are first introduced to his bruise. It is a small cupboard so we also had to work out the practicalities of this shot: where the camera would go, how we would prop it up and how we would press record. We worked out the correct height we need it to be at in order to see Sam's face, and the convenience of the touch screen meant one of us could press the record button without being in the shot.
again.
Video of our experiment for our cupboard sequence.
The match on action shot was fairly straightforward, however our experiment taught us that for continuity purposes we need to make sure we know the exact spot that the microwave meal is in for the second close up shot when Sam picks it up again.
Video of our title sequence experiment.
We also tried out the title sequence shot, this was again for the practicalities of the shot, for example getting the timing right of when we will send the texts, but also for the positioning of the phone in relation to the camera, and whether we will be able to see the texts. We worked our the mesaurement that the camera needs to be away from the screen so that we can see the text. We realised that by putting the phone on an angle we can still see the text, but it looks much more casual and realisitc, also it means we can see Sam's feet when he is walking past the phone, so the audience can link the phone to belonging to him. We also tested it for lighting purposes as phones are screens they reflect things easily. On our first shot we had the lights on and so the light was directly reflected onto the screen, making the shot unuseable. We then turned the light off, however this was too dark. So we realised that by putting the phone next to the window we can use the natural light which doesn't reflect on the screen. To do this shot we are going to show the credits of the film title, who it is starring and who it is directed by. We have four phones in our group. One is being used as a prop, but we will use the other three to send texts to this one phone saying these credits. When doing this experiment we worked out what is the best order for it to go in, how it will come up on the screen and the timing of it.
