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Critical reflection - Film Form

758 words

Too Close for Comfort - a film directed by Gonçalo Gois, produced by Mara Prentice, Written by Gonçalo Gois, sound designed by Soairse Gillespie, cinematography by Keri Harvey, set and costume design by Esther Elbornova and finally, edited by myself.

As a group, we worked very well. I was going into a group where most people have worked together but felt as if I fit in really well, not just in the creative process but just in general. From brainstorming, to production to even post, we all kept in touch, got on well and had fun, but were productive. We had many meetings during pre productions, doing location scouts together, making sure everyone was on the same page, we even had a meeting right before the shoot which happened to land on Esther’s birthday - Gonçalo made sure to bring in party hats for that. This led to a very organised pre production era.

Within my role as editor, I was in charge of camera reports, clapper board (on one day, the other I took maras place as boom operator) and gathering the sod cards and transferring our footage onto my usb drive at the end of each shoot.

Outwith the shoot, I organised through sound and footage, transcoded, synced and cut together the clips in direct comparison the script and storyboard. This was very stressful and time consuming as we had to change shoot days which further lessened my editing time as well as the time to sound design. I was always aware of this and wanted to give Soairse as much time as possible so tried my best to get it done in good time. To help with this time issue, whenever I sent a cut to the group I was always given feedback from the director and cinematographer instantly so I could move onto our next cut. Also, and very I’m extremely grateful for this, Gonçalo our director offered to colour grade so sound I could also give time to my other project for film adaptation before submission. The sound synced up perfectly and all I had to add was credits before we submitted it. It was a very smooth edit apart from time.

I’m very happy with the feedback we received. Whenever critical feedback was given, a suggestion on how they would have fixed it was given which was super helpful in our learning process.

There was not a lot said about edit except that the close ups on the text could be longer, which I fully agree with, it was just down to the time limit on the submission itself. I think as we were cutting we were watching it from only a few seconds prior so the overall time on the text seems long enough - I recognised this was the problem as soon as Leo said this in the crit and will definitely keep it in mind for next time.

Set design was another factor that kept coming up during feedback during the crit. We expected this due to our time and location.

We had been searching for location for ages, had changed the story from a corridor to a waiting room to just a room…but still we had nothing. A couple days before the shoot, we were offered a room 1/53 on Craiglockhart campus. A few of us had this room for Ecology last trimester and knew it wasn’t the best so we continued our search but used it as a back up. We went for a viewing at the army base near Craiglockhart through Keri’s dad and see potential but unfortunately our timetables didn’t match up. 1/53 was big and included wooden panels. Esther definitely did what she could with the wall and if we had more time we would have done more things like the feedback suggested, for example, fully covering the panel walls with pictures of them.

The shakiness of the hand held camera was also brought up. It was first questioned why we did handheld, but it was then added it was just shaky. This was one of the pieces of feedback we got from Catriona during our first tutorial on our cuts and so I added stabiliser effects to the clips that were worse. However during the first watch at the crit, the shakiness was the first thing I noticed…in fact on the big screen it seemed worse than before I stabilised. I can only put this down to the size of screen I was working on versus the screen we were shown it on.

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Crit Feedback - Film Adaptation

I unfortunately never made it to our groups crit but from the notes my group took down, it went decent.

In terms of editing, for what it was, I was very happy with the feedback. Not a lot was said apart from perhaps tightening it up and colour grading it - which version we couldn't get in sync.

Andrew's comparison of it being like a channel 4 tv series episode from 15 years ago seems like somewhat a compliment and made me laugh - I see it.

The writing was amazing, which we knew - thank you Sean.

The changing accents were distracting, with our main characters strong

American and chuck with a not so strong Scottish. I fully agree agree with this, after editing for 2 weeks it was very distracting for me too.

Overall, I'm proud of the group with the timing we had and issues in editing I feel the feedback was quite a relief.

[finnsfilmblog]

Second Cut Feedback (Film Form)

And our plan of action.

Too Close for Comfort

Stabilisation!! - I need to watch a few youtube videos on how to do this in avid, which will be quite straight forward i reckon. I did think about this, with the handheld shots being very shaky in some parts, just ran out of time before handing in this cut.

Open with the wide shot to mid, rather than the mid to wide as edited in this cut. The acting is quite over the top in these shots so to have it as a close up straight away is quite intense - I fully agree with this, it felt quite overly dramatic and trying to hard almost. Having changed it now, i much prefer it this way.

A lot of clips are out of focus during lines. Try to cut before and have other shots during dialogue if needed. - This is a tricky one but definelty doable.

Gonçalo (director) and I are sitting down today to go over what we can remove dialogue wise, for example, the part where Sylvie speaks about the door being scary (when it doesn't look it. trying to find other shots that were good enough in both sound and video is tricky as well as a lot of the time it was either or being the main issue.

Go for more close ups that handheld. This has a lot to do with stabilisation.

Gonçalo and i are going to look into this as well today, see which ones are bad, which ones can be saved with stabilisation.

Overall, it's a lot of redoing certain shots in the edit but I am really happy with the editing feedback!

[finnsfilmblog]

Editing Updates (Film Form)

29 March

Uploaded clips after shoot

31 March

Uploaded clips after shoot

Editing start

3-6 April

Transcode, Syncage, First cut done

8 April

Sat with director, more cuts done

12 April

Feedback given through tutorials

13 April

Cuts done

15 April

With group feedback, director and I cut down edit, managed a Final Cut.

18 April

Sent to sound

27 April

Sound (thank you saoirse) added to colour graded version (thank you Gonçalo)

Submitted

28 April

Crit

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Editing Updates - Film Form

26 March 2023

I couldn’t make the last day of filming due to scheduling clashes. Picked up usb with clips and Audio. Camera reports not great but will work with them

Issues in the editing stage and how I fixed them

Organisation - because I couldn’t make

Files - some in braw- in my avid software at home I added a plug in that allowed this file to be transcoded, school computers had them already

Export - got help from tech people, still nothing, kept stopping and starting or crashing on export. Tried to export it onto the workspace even though we were told it was too full. It worked, panic over. We timecoded the same cut and sent it to sound

Colour grade - took a while to export as well - a couple days.

Sound - didn’t sync to Final Cut. We believe it was an exportation issue as it was the same cut as the timecoded. Ended up just using that one for crit, losing colour grade but at least we had sound.

Overall I felt this edit was not in my favour. Our Final Cut was not included in our final submission which is unfortunate because it took me a few days to colour grade but the actual cut itself was the best we had done so I was okay with handing it in (just wish we had more time to take out the timecoded on the submission day)

[finnsfilmblog]

Too Close for Confort Shoots (Film Form)

Day 1

I was driving in and home with equipment this day. Luckily Mara and I are from the same town so she did directions. We got there in plenty of time and started to set up!

When our actors arrived, there was some communication issues including the wrong room (off by 1 room) and the fact there would not be a green room. I had never been on a set with actors who expected that and definitely gave us an insight into the real world of on set.

Issues on set:

Some safetv issues but as soon as we were enlightened on them, they were fixed. (Wires etc)

Things that went well!:

Managed to get extra shots done

Finished right on time

Day 2

Arrived early, set up again.

This day, our producer couldn't make it so we had to come together and all take on the role to try and allow the production to move smoothly. This worked to an extent.

Issues on set:

Safety issue with lights - given lights we weren't allowed to use on campus.

Dynamic off with actors - we started to notice small things that were being said and felt the actors were quite aloof. I have learned not all personality types will deal with situations in the same way. In future I would not be taken aback by a situation like this - this will be key in the outside world.

Actors felt there was low morale - something that I didn't realise in the moment because of being busy trying to get everything sorted as a group but looking back perhaps more could have been said or done to keep the positive energy going.

Things that went well!

Finished early - gave me time to go home and start to look at footage and camera/ sound reports.

Gave us more time to clean up and get equipment back early.

Overall, we had a few issues with equipment, location, actors and communication however, I felt as a team we kept it going, fixed anything that was wrong or a problem, and got the shoot done all in the time we were worried would be too little.

[finnsfilmblog]

Sheep shoots (Film Adaptation)

Day 1

This was a really fun and productive shoot. We came in an hour before the actors to set up with the amazing set design props by Sanjana.

We got on really well with the actors, they clicked straight away. We were all cracking jokes but still getting the work done.

The only thing I would do differently is ask our actor of Chuck to come in a couple hours later, there was a lot of waiting for the conversation scenes.

We finished right on time, it was an easy tidy up and we got away at a decent time for a Friday night.

I unfortunately never made it to the day 2 shoot because of previous commitment but met with Keri for Film Form location scouting and she let me know it went well!

[finnsfilmblog]

Research Stage (Film Adaptation)

As part of the research, I watched many films and looked into many editors and their previous work.

I watched the cornetto trilogy a lot because of the pace of editing in particular.

In our presentation, I noted editors I had looked into, why I chose to research them and what films in particular I would take inspiration from. I learned a lot of this, for example, dede allen and her lie story, it’s extremely interesting and her work is amazing.

[finnsfilmblog]

Research Stage (Film Form)

As editor, my research consisted of what our inspirations would be.

At the beginning we made a list of films and television programmes that we would take inspiration off in every aspect of the pre production, production and post.

Some included:

The Good Place

The Lovely Bones

Defending your Life

Beetlejuice

Here’s the video we included in our PowerPoint of the research stage:

The faded overlay was something I looked into as well in the research stage but once I saw the footage I realised how bright it already was and decided against it.

(Our research stage pitch PowerPoint):

#Youtube

[finnsfilmblog]

Film Form, Film Adaptation

Editing schedule (first draft, still to take work and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema Essay into account)

[finnsfilmblog]

LMD07105 Representing the Real

Critical Feedback Form

NAME: Finn Kelly

PROJECT: Jack Logan: Whitburn Tourism

DATE OF CRITIQUE: 27.04.22

TUTOR(S): Sana Bilgrami, Joe Li, Tomas Sheridan.

VERBATIM TRANSCRIPT OF FEEDBACK:

Sana: Watch the film on the big screen…What worked for you? What did’nt?...

Roderick: Bit quiet.

Nikola: Yes, it’s a bit quiet…Oh I’m Nikola, the director.

Roderick: I’m Roddie, I did editing.

Finn: I’m Finn, I was producer.

Sana: Hang on…Roddie, what were you doing?

Roderick: Editing.

Finn: Finn, Producer.

Amber: Amber, sound

Roderick: So, yeah, this wasn’t our…the film we planned to do…it was to do with communication issues and scheduling stuff so…Finn’s friend, he got in touch and.

Sana: So when you say ‘not planned’, you had another subject?

Roderick: Yeah, we did.

Sana: That’s fine…. yeah, this keeps happening.

Roderick: Yeah…and it worked pretty well.

Nikola: Yeah, I’m quite happy with that, I loved the editing, and I would say the only thing I wish we had talked about more in the documentary is that he kind of focused a lot on the town more than like the individual on himself. He did focus on himself as well because I tried to ask questions that would make him talk about himself, but like, he’s such an interesting person, so I would’ve liked to talk more about him.

Roderick: I think him and us as a group had different visions…

Nikola: Yes.

Roderick: For like how we wanted the film to end out, so we were trying to like…we were interviewing him and trying to poke him and stuff but yeah…

Nikola: He just really likes Whitburn.

Roderick: And then we did a little walking too which was quite nice.

Sana: Any other comments? Or?

Finn: I think we got really lucky with him to be fair, he’s really comfortable in front of the camera and stuff so…

Nikola: So it was really fun, talking to him was just like, like talking to your friend.

Roderick: I did wish we got more footage. We did get some but by the end of the day our SD cards were filling up and our batteries were draining and yeah…We had an interview with his granny, but that was pretty unusable.

Tomas: She was just swearing all the time.

[All Laugh]

Nikola: She was really fun.

Roderick: Fun woman, yeah

Nikola: Yeah, she forced us to take our coats

[Roddy laughs]

Roderick: she was aggressively hospitable

[All laugh]

Sana: Okay, Okay. Do you want to start first?

Tomas: Yeah, sure. So okay. And again, just drawing attention to stuff that really work. Definitely, you got…so far…the prize for the longest time without someone talking in the film. Did we not enjoy arriving to Whitburn without someone telling us anything? I won’t go on about it, but I like the arrival. I like the elliptical nature of ending on the part… arriving then departing. So, then these things are too neat, but I definitely felt I would have liked even more arriving and even more departing to be honest like just to get the sense of wondering about this place and I actually know Whitburn [ Tomas laughs] Its quite…Its quite funny as I’m…So I think that you set up the guy you met on the street. It was a set up? A friend?

Roderick: Yeah.

Tomas: Yeah, Yeah, okay. And, and also on your arrival…people who aren’t actors don’t act very well so maybe don’t make them act. Just, I mean, just go with the reality of it, you know, don’t pretend you bumped into them and asked them about this person who you’ve not seen yet. I like the idea of starting to introduce this minor celebrity through the voices of some other people, but then they don’t even meet enough people, it didn’t become a thing. You know, that he was like a minor celebrity off the back of the video and in a way I would have made up for the lack of people you bumped into on the rainy day on Whitburn who’s willing to talk about jack, make up for it with more of his video with proper sound, and getting to see this kid and build up an idea of who this jack is before we see the real jack. SO, I think you had a really good intuition. I would admit it for longer to get into thing…and also to appreciate how funny this fake, this fake tourist video about Whitburn was for a kid to make, you know? 10,12 years ago. Great that there was no voice, great that there was no music, uh…the set up was quite obvious with the guy in the street, more of his film. Uhm, yeah, when you were, I thought you were really onto something when you had him standing outside of the community centre and you maybe should’ve just pushed a bit harder for him to staying character the way he did when he was a kid, because that sort time has passed and nothing has changed in Whitburn feeling, or everything’s changed, but for the worst, but its sort of tied into what he says in the interview, I just wished he had been standing there with the umbrella saying “this is the community centre” and then seeing the boarded up thing, and I really liked the walking around him, introducing us to space, a bit like intel. It just gave you cutting opportunities because were in different places and so you could piece it together on like maybe the talking head interview. And I like the visual storytelling or like even the shaky camera that you just held when you see, you know, devastated public space and stuff. Even though the camera work was shoddy, it worked. Sorry, sorry.

[ Class laughs]

Tomas: I mean, it was, it was shaky, you know, shaky hands, but it didn’t bother me, you know, compared to to say, ivan walking, it bothered me less because you were saying…

[class laughs again]

Tomas: I’m sorry, is this? I don’t want this to be this personal, I want, I just want you guys to thing, oh, yeah, well it’s like shaking behind Ivan for like two seconds and it’s just covering a cut, that happens. But when you hold it for eight seconds, which feels like an eternity and tis not static camera work, it becomes like a feature of the aesthetics of the film, and I think it ties in quite well personally. But…so it didn’t bother me with the humour and everything, sorry.

Sana: So, yeah, yeah [ Sana laughs]

Joe: Okay, I liked the, the spontaneity in the film, like the natural flow f emotions, whatever. I think you look like you had fun and you also had fun…He’s like a fun project, I enjoyed that, that’s very good. My biggest problem is about the production technically, I think its quite awkward, the shots from the past, we look at the roads, look out to the roads. The framing, I think its quite awkward. Also, there’s very poor lighting, especially for the indoor interview. Did you use light at all?

Roderick: Eh ye, we used a light, but we were facing the window, so.

Leo: Too much background?

Nikola: Yeah.

Tomas: And did you grade in editing?

Roderick: I tried but it just crashed my computer.

Tomas: Yes, it’s like ungraded black magic.

Joe: Oh…A bit of a focus issue as well, on the costa coffee cup, I think it changes, you know? That one, two, seconds. Yeah, I think there’s some technical issue here. Sana?

Sana: Yeah, I, I think actually, looking at my feedback, I liked the start and ending, the bus journey, I really enjoyed that – I got a sense of coming into this town. And I think, oh sorry, before I say that, I really enjoyed the film [she laughs] great character. Really liked coming into the town and I feel at first, like tommy said, you could have done a bit more in terms of then visually establishing the town, so we get a little bit of a flavour of this place so that we can appreciate that video we then encounter. And then but you, you kind of ask this pal, whoever, you know, who is this guy? That was good, and I thought you could have done a bit more of that with other characters as well before, so you keep building us this ‘who is this?’ mystery. Or, yeah, I felt that was sudden because suddenly we are at the door and then we meet this person, so I felt that journey of looking for this character could have been built up a bit more personally. And then so then when he revealed somebody who’s perhaps, I mean, you didn’t? then you’re trying to work out… but before we …sorry. I’m just trying to remember the order of events. You ask the person, then you show us a bit of the YouTube video, right?

Roderick: Yeah, we knock on the door, and he lets us in.

Sana: yeah, but there’s a little bit of the YouTube that you show us earlier as well.

[ Nikola and Roderick reply ‘yes’]

Sana: And I found that very confusing because I don’t know nothing about your film and I felt that you shouldn’t have shown that too early, like don’t show that to us yet because im trying to work out what the hell is going on in this film?

[ all laugh]

Sana: What is this film about? And it wasn’t a good kind of intrigue. It was more intriguing to have you ask people who this character is because then we are wondering who you’re looking for. And then when we do meet him, he’s quite…not out of the ordinary, you know, he looks like an ordinary bloke. And then, the reveal of the YouTube video would be much more interesting. And then I would have wanted you to stay with it a bit longer. So, this is quite detailed feedback, but not difficult to adjust in your edit, and I would have loved to have seen more of the video then, as tommy said. And, yes, I struggled a little bit to hear all of that but I really, yeah, I really enjoyed being taken around this town and this sense of…yeah, really enjoyable, nice kind of portrait of a town through a character, so, well done.

Finn: Thank you.

Sana: Oh just one thing there’s a shot with him in a kind of cupboard full of DVDs he’s got.

Roderick: Yeah, he likes his DVDs, he’s got like a massive home cinema and stuff, he gave us a tour of his house.

Sana: Yea, so you could have, okay, you should have taken us on a tour of his house then, you know, because you just had this shot in the middle of an interview and you’re there for a few seconds and then it’s gone. So, it’s like, what was that about? That was kind of interesting, but I, you know, it neither said something about, I feel, you know it’s a bit of a continuation from what we’ve been talking about this morning as well, about how its let the shots, you know, let’s have all of it, let’s have the tour and outside the community centre microphone…what was I saying-

Tomas: Boom in shot, boom in shot. I thought that was comical.

Sana: No, no, I didn’t mind the boom in shot, I had something else to say about it. Sorry, doesn’t matter, I didn’t write the thought behind it, I just flagged up that scene. Something else happened at that moment. I don’t mind seeing the microphone but something about that scene. I’m really sorry, but my brain is kind of letting me down right now. But, yeah, I really enjoyed some of that. If you fix these things, it would be even more enjoyable to watch them, well done. How much time do we have?

Leo: I thought it was brilliant. It felt really confidently made, like in the edit, a couple of the things like flana…I meant Sana flagged up, I really liked. The guy you were talking to, obviously he was an actor but you’re talking to him, and you get the feeling, oh, is this some sort of minor celebrity? And you had those like flash forwards of this shot of him in the camera view finder, getting ready to be interviewed and you’re like, hey what’s going on here? Who is this person? You’re building up the mystery. I think like…really what made it was this certain confidence on how you’re approaching your subject – I love that you show you will be representing the city, sorry, town, before you even show him. And I really enjoy that you took my suggestion about putting you not outing the YouTube video, but the YouTube interface that video side because it really contextualises him as like a viral phenomenon. And I enjoyed even more that you had the full screen at the end where it just showed the video without the YouTube interface where it gets a bit more personal, you just see him being a kid. And also, some design – the mix is a bit quiet, but I feel likes it’s not fair to tell you guys off because you guys haven’t really been used to mixing. But there’s this…I really noticed in this one film that there wasn’t a single moment where you can hear the gap in sound, like sound fading out nad coming back in. I don’t know if that was because of that like low volume, it might be, but giving the benefit of the doubt, it was really well put together sound wise, because like it flew...

Tomas: Flow

Leo: Flowed, thank you. It flowed together really well. There wasn’t a moment where there was like a technical mistake that took me out of it. I was like, okay, I was with the the subject from the beginning to the end, and it was really funny because [inaudible] really funny. The one thing that I definitely did not like was the shots of him in the room of DVDs that aren’t contextualised, that don’t say much about him. So, in a sense, you just should’ve gone for different footage. I’m sure you had plenty of footage you could have used otherwise. Those are the only shots that really felt out of place other than that [inaudible]

Tomas: I just wanted to point out, don’t be afraid of going around, going around Whitburn and saying,

“Hey, do you know Jack Logan?” “Who?” you know? Just put together some of those, and then the YouTube video intercut like that… somehow you’re expecting him to be…He was a minor celebrity when he went viral, but it was a long time ago and he wasn’t like, you know, a celebrity, so no one will remember him. So, you know, don’t…don’t feel like you have to set up someone talking about him like he’s famous because we didn’t fall for it because…and like, like maybe going around with a bunch of people saying “who?” and then we see the video and then someone goes “nope, don’t know Jack Logan” you know, and, but you’re building up this sense of mystery a little, you know, [inaudible] in the YouTube interface.

Sana: I just want to say though, I’m not sure that when we see the glimpses of the YouTube, before we, you know those those bits. I don’t know if it’s doing the job of telling us that this is a minor celebrity.

Tomas: I mean you could even have the interviews stopping people saying, you know, “Jack Logan who went viral you don’t know him?”

Sana: Some kind of context would help then if you want to go down that route.

Leo: I don’t think the lack of context set up him character but set up a mystery.

Sana: Yeah, and i…the mystery…how do…yeah, you need more mystery. Okay, do we have any more time? One? Yes. Go for it. Oh, no, I can do this. [movement]

Davide: I just wanted to say that I like the consistency and like the irony of the whole thing from just like making a big deal to like go in there and even like the part with the actor and just like asking him and then we have like…uhm… he’s, he’s like a very ordinary person, which kind of, I think reflects the fact that were just like building up this altar of this town and stuff, and then it’s just like common, like neighbourhood. And yeah, I really, really love that…this.

Sana: Great, anyone else? No? Okay, thank you very much.

[Claps]

MAIN POINTS GLEANED FROM FEEDBACK:

• Don’t bring in friends to act, use real people, get real reactions, build up the intrigue..

• Double check lighting and focus- leave nothing to chance.

• Contextualise the DVD shot or use other footage.

• Record him giving us a house tour – contextualises and gives more footage.\

• Comedic tone achieved.

• YouTube interface perhaps too early, might ruin mystery.

REFLECTION:

I’m very happy with the positive feedback we received and appreciate the suggestions for improvements to draw forward to the next project.

Obviously, there are things that could be revised mostly in the edit, like the DVD shot or colour grading, simple fixes that will definitely be looked into so we can add the film to our folios.

I agree with the lecturers comments we could have built more tension into the lead up and reveal of meeting jack, interviewing more people about who Jack Logan is, to get a broader view of his character and standing in the local community. I believe if we approached random people on Whitburn high street and ask them if they knew him, it could add another dimension to the comedy. We would either receive the expected “who?”, which would add to the comedic and ironic tone, or could find someone who knows him and could tell us a bit about him, adding to the mystery and excitement to meet this character.

With lighting, it was something I noticed watching back, but with it being a dull day and only having one light it was tricky, however if we could go back and do this again, I would think more before the shoot day, check the weather, and try to be more organised to create a clear and crisp image.

ACTION PLAN:

As a group, I would really like us to consider all feedback and complete the revisions noted to our film, adding footage not previously shown and possibly creating a longer version to add to our portfolios,

On a personal note, I would really like to obtain all footage and make my own edit over the summer, using the advice from Joe, Sana, Tommy and Leo, but also input from Jack. With the extra footage; not yet used a new film could be created all together. I would like to experiment with all this in mind, just for the fun and experience and perhaps even improve on the original.

[finnsfilmblog]

Film Narrative 2 - Crit Reflection

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Film Narrative 2 update (April 2022)

In our first shoot, it was quite hectic. We had to wait until it was dark, giving up limited time to shoot as we had to be out by 10pm. We got what we really needed but no extras which then created a struggle for the editor.

However, after our first shoot at the beginning of March we realised due to camera issues we were going to have to reshoot.

 It wasn’t the best case scenario but we were a lot more organised going into our second shoot, only issue being that we didn't have the LEDs from last time but luckily we had a friend on the course who kindly lent us them for the night. It wasn't exact to before but we liked it and thought it matched our mood board well. 

With timing, it went a lot smoother. We were packed up and out by 10pm having done priority shots, including shots given to do through feedback and a few extra to give variety.

It is currently in the editing stage and is looking good so far, we have no issues with the footage. 

(photos to come)

#FN2

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Representing the Real Update (April 2022)

28.03.22

We met up before meeting with Tommy as we knew because we had lost contact with our original character, we would need to come up with a plan B (time was getting on). 

We spoke about ideas we had in our first brainstorming session, thinking of people we already knew or that would be easy and quick to contact. Thats when i brought up my friend from home - Jack Logan.

Jack makes youtube videos as well as going to film school in Glasgow. About 6 years ago one of Jacks videos went viral, gaining 12,000 views in the time its been up. He takes the viewers a tour around our town (Whitburn, West Lothian) and with his jolly, positive attitude brings light to the deprived area, particularly the not so well kept community centre and old shop.

He agreed straight away and so we made plans for a zoom call to see what storyline and conflict we would follow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jec0lzGksE

30.03.22

We did a small interview with Jack over Zoom and it went really well. We agreed to film that Sunday and agreed on out plan which he was chuffed with.

03.04.22

The four of us met up early while Jack was at church to start gathering equipment and make a solid plan for the day.

We headed up to Jack’s house and got a tour of his home cinema (which is incredible) and then set up cameras and mics for the interview. We all chipped in with questions, wanting it to feel more like a friendly conversation which Jack happily helped us out with. After that, we got some sots of jack in his room and headed out into our town for some cutaway shots. We went to the community centre, which is now boarded up because of vandals but we managed to catch a glimpse, the old supermarket, which is now Aldis ,and when heading home jack suggested we went to visit his gran which we loved.

It was a very spontaneous and fun day. We got good footage and good content.

It is now in the editing process which we have a lot of ideas for so our editor is planning on trying out a few different directions like comedic, or focus on the conflict that came with the feedback on his viral video. Then as a group we will give feedback and hope to make the best version of our documentary.

#repthereal

[finnsfilmblog]

FN2 2nd group update

1. Feedback

Our feedback in the lesson on the 10th of February helped us get an understanding of how a treatment should look and thus how we should format it. This is currently helping us with our pre- production assignment. The lecture questioned us on how we are planning to shoot in dark, which we clarified that is would be around 5-6pm, by conveying to us the cons of doing in night.

However, we are continuing with the idea of night shoot (between 5-6pm) as we concluded that we would use the lighting effectively, to create light for us to film but enough to make it still look as a night shift.

2. Sound

We learned in the lecture of ‘dark art of sound design' on how we can start using sound in our films to create an atmos and how to apply it. This caused us to start thinking about the non–diegetic voice calls we are going to add in post. And the lecture and introduction gave us an insight on how to realistically add it into our film.

3. Shooting plan

We currently do not have a set shooting plan; we are working on our production documents which we will figure out our actors and shooting timetable in the duration of doing the paperwork. Our producer Amber is currently doing the risk assessment and will be booking the equipment soon when our final filming date will be set.

4. Dynamic

We are all cooperation to the work and working well and happily as a group.

#FN2

[finnsfilmblog]

Film Narrative 2 Storyboard and Scripts

#FN2

[finnsfilmblog]

FN2 - Tues 8th Feb update

1. What is your idea and characters?

The idea we are developing is of a helpline worker who deals with issues that customers have with the companies’ products. The worker is a female who is called Julie. She is short-tempered and feels trapped in her work life, having problems with her family concerning her future career. In this 3-minute film, she is on a night shift alone, where we will see her doing her job recklessly. Then a person calls her, they call the wrong number and thought it was a helpline, needing help. The caller is a male named Tom. He starts to talk about his mental problems that evolved due to his work, which makes him feel trapped. The two start to bond over their shared problems with work and the effect it has on them.

2. What research have you done?

We have researched what phone company we will be doing. This does not need to be real but needs to make sense for the helpline being 24 hours, as the protagonist is working a night shift on her own.

We additionally research more into mental health and their helplines, so we could make realistic conversations.

3. Location?

We have decided on a conference like room location, which we have seen on the Craiglockhart campus. The setting we decided to do is when it gets dark outside to make it more plausible to our idea.

4. Roles of the crew?

Amber – Producer

Finn – Director

Ariel – Cinematographer

Keri – Screenwriter

Nikola – Editor and Sound Designer

As a group, we are contributing well to our ideas and the overall work

#FN2