Filming Schedule

Wednesday 14th December 2011

We are going to try and film the majority of our first draft today. Hopefully we shall be able to film a bit of the dance studio scene along with the whole bedroom and street scenes today between the hours of 11:20am and 5pm. This will leave us with only the ballet studio and public toilet scenes to film which we can do at a later stage.

Wednesday 21st December 2011

As we were unable to film the street and public toilet scene last week we are going to try and complete them today. We will be filming just after it gets dark, 4pm, till about 6pm. Once this is completed then we will only need to film the rest of the ballet studio scene to complete. As we are using outside locations I am now going to check the weather forecast for Wednesday.

As you can see from above the weather forecast should be okay to film in. We've missed the 'drizzle' which is predicted to happen in the morning and during the hours of 4 and 6 is predicted ''grey/white cloud''. We hoped that the weather would be slightly dark and cloudy to add a slight mysterious and eerie atmosphere when filming on the rope walk.

Wednesday 12th January 2012
Today we plan on filming the entire ballet scene in the school dance room and also the rest of the street scene. We plan on doing this from 1:30pm until 4pm. If we manage to get all of this done it means that the only thing left to film will be the public toilet sequence.
As we are using outside locations I have checked the whether forecast below:

As you can see from the weather forecast above there is going to be light cloud/sun during our required filming hours, this will make it suitable weather for filming.

Monday 23rd January 2012
After school on Monday (3:30pm) we have decided to film the public toilet scene and also the outside scene where the receiving of the drug happens. We have decided to use the public toilets in sandwich and an ally way near school as our locations. Filming should only take around an hour or so to complete. I have checked the weather forecasts for Monday and 'light cloud' was scheduled, this means that the weather will be suitable for filming in.

Wednesday 8th February 2012

Looking back at our footage for improvements we have decided to re-shoot the ballet scene. This is our chosen re-filming date. We will be using the multipurpose room between the hours of 1:15pm - 2:00pm.

Editing

Editing is a very important part of our production, it is an art of storytelling. Editing can be used to bring emotion out in an actor's performance, create a point of view on certain events, guide the telling and pace of a story and many other things. As editor of our film I have decided to look at other productions and what editing techniques they have used.

Sherlock

I really liked the way Sherlock have used slow/fast paced footage within their film. This is particularly effective within the forest running scene (0:10 - 0:30). This allows the audience to focus on specific events which happen and emphasize the urgency. The mix of slow and fast paced footage adds tension and makes the footage very interesting and engaging to watch. For our production, Flight, I hope to take inspiration from Sherlock and within the last part of Flight I want to slow some clips down (particularly the receiving of the drugs) to emphasize the moment. I also then want to have a series of stop motion fast scenes to give the sense of wrongdoing.

Fish Tank

Within Fish Tank they use very long sequences without any jump cuts or editing. This is very different to the Sherlock film which uses many face paced cuts and different paced sequences. The way fish tank uses minimal editing adds to the realism of the production as the audience actually feel part of the film. I really like the way the camera just follows Mia around without changing angle or cutting as the audience really feel part of the action. I hope to take inspiration from Fish Tank in regards to editing also as I really like how it gives the production as sense of realism which is what we hope to do within Flight.

Me and Jack both worked very closely together during editing to ensure that his vision (as cinematographer) and mine merged together to create our final production.

Colour Consideration

When editing the footage which we recorded over the Christmas holidays I noticed that a lot of the footage was different colours (due to the constant change in lighting). This particularly occurred in the bedroom scenes. For example:

Shot one

Shot two

As editor I had to decide what colour footage I liked better, the warmer or colder toned one.
I noticed that throughout Fish Tank Arnold uses warm tones. For example, the following clip:

I have also decided to use the warmer toned footage.
I feel that the warm tones connote safety and this is what we wanted to achieve in Sophie's bedroom. We wanted the scene to look warm and comfortable and we wanted the audience to recognize her bedroom is where Sophie felt the most safe. I feel that the warm tones also give off a homely feel which we wanted to have within our bedroom location.

NOTE: As our footage was all a variety of different colour I am going to use the tools available to me in Abode Premiere Pro (our editing software) to make sure that all the clips I use are the same orangey colour as the one above.

Above is a print screen of me changing the colours of our footage within Premier using the brightness and contrast options.

Sight and Sound Magazine

Sight and Sound magazine is an international film magazine which is read by film critics and academics all across the nation. Inside the magazine is information including:

• Informed and independent film news
• In-depth interviews with leading filmmakers
• Retrospective articles vividly bringing film history to life
• Reviews of every new cinema release

Sight and Sound magazine offers readers pages packed full of information ranging from in depth film articles to interviews with top filmmakers. This magazine mainly appeals to film critics and academics rather than the general public as each page of this magazine is packed full of information, the pages do not include many pictures or features unlike popular film magazines such as Empire and Total Film.
(My Sight and Sound review can be found here).

Sight and Sound magazine is published by the British Film Institute (BFI) monthly. 

The British Film Institute is the government backed lead agency for film in the UK, founded in 2000. They ensure that the economic, cultural and educational aspects of film are effectively represented at home and abroad. Their key aim is to promote the UK film industry abroad. The support from the British Film Institute helps develop new film makers, fund exciting new British films and gets a wider choice of films to audiences throughout the UK.

Lighting

While filming our production we had to take into account the lighting which we were going to use throughout. Lighting is key part of the mise-en-scene (Mise-en-scene refers to everything that appears before the camera and its arrangement). Lighting can really effect the way a scene is perceived and is used to create certain atmospheres, for example, in horror films dark lighting is often used to add tension and mystery. Lighting can also emphasize a mood, distance, time or day or night and heighten a situation.

Each of our four locations will have different lighting to help us create certain atmospheres.

Dance Studio
We plan on using bright lights during the dance studio sequence as I feel this will heighten the sense of pressure we are trying to portray during these scene. The bright lights will hopefully make Sophie look like she is being put on the spot and in a way being forced to dance. We are also using bright lights during this sequence so the audience can draw parallels between this opening sequence and the dark street scene further along in our production. As you can see from the screen shot below, in this sequence from Black Swan they use artificial lighting to make the main character stand out and puts them on the spot.

Bedroom
Within the bedroom scene we are going to use natural lighting. We wanted to the bedroom scene to look natural and connote safety and warmth. We wanted Sophie's bedroom to be the only place she feels like she can go and feel safe and be happy. I really liked the shot in Fish Tank (below) in which they use a lens flare to liven up one of their window shots, I would really like to try and recreate this effect within the bedroom scene as I feel this will be very visually pleasing, enhance our footage and add interest to an otherwise simple shot.

Street
Within the street scene we are also going to use natural lighting. As we are filming in the evening this sequence is going to be quite dark, giving our production a sense of mystery and danger. We want to use dark lighting within this sequence to represent Sophie turning to a dangerous hedonistic lifestyle. Darkness also connotes fear and emptiness which are some of the emotions Sophie would be feeling. When researching film inspirations I was really drawn to the sequence in Ed Sheeran's - A Team (screen shot below) of the dark location with the bright car lights in the background, I found this very visually appealing. This is the type of effect we hope to try and achieve within Flight.

Public Toilets
Within the toilet scene we plan on having bright artificial lighting to emphasize and heighten the situation, which path should Sophie take? Bright lights, like the first sequence, will put Sophie on the spot. As the audience can see everything that's going on in the shot this will also add tension and draw the audience into the action.