More filming to be done?

Due to our actress in Laura Bentley being bogged down due to January exams and coursework we were unable to use her in the last scene of the film. Of course, this wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for the mass snow that hit us at the end of last year which of course prevented most people from even leaving their house, never mind filming.

So, after having a re-think it was decided that we needed to get filming done so we completely re-wrote the script keeping main plot points. When in comes to including the character of Jayne again we are thinking about the option of having Laura answering her phone in a completely different setting and linking both of the films again.

One way in which we could do this would be in this example;

In this shot we see that 2 completely different shots are placed next to each other as the two girls have a conversation. This is one possibility of how we could do this particular shot.

Another way to do this sort of shot is by switching back and forth between conversations,

As shown here by a young youtube poster, the shots are just easily cut from and can quite easily show a phone conversation as long as you show both characters to be on the phone at the time and that the dialogue is actually compatible.

Due to the easiness of it, we will probably film Laura's half of the conversation asif she is out looking for Ryan and then put the selected clips next to each other. Asif a conversation is actually taking place.

The Loss of a Character

Due to unforseen circumstances, unfortunately we were unable to film with Laura, meaning that we had to completely revamp the script and write the character of Jayne Bentley out of the last scene. Not the easiest of tasks, but nothing phases our group and we managed to do so whereas we didn't change the storyline too much, still used the parts of the plot that we felt were the strong points to our film and then added a storyline around it, that didn't include the character of Jayne Fogg.

One major feature of having the character of Jayne in the final scene was to build suspense. Our original script was to have Ryan appear and Jayne halfway through making the phone call to which Ryan would run downstairs and snatch the phone off Jayne just before she were to tell them that Ryan was missing. However, due to the absence of Jayne, this was not possible without the use of either some incredibly good CGI or a pretty good double of Laura. We worked around the situation by simply saying that Jayne had gone out looking for Ryan and that she might have phoned Mum and Dad while she were out meaning that both Lewis and Ryan had to rush to the phone to ring Jayne to make sure that she hadn't actually phoned Mum and Dad while she was out.

When our video is actually completed it may be an idea to make comparisons of the original script to what we ended up doing eventually.

It is also worth nothing, that we had to find a way to extract the story from one side of the conversation, but we may decide to film Jayne's half of the conversation at another time just so you can hear what she says, but we will have to see what it looks like when we edit it together. A decision will be made at a later date.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow..

Due to the sudden downpour of snow we are unable to film this week, as we were hoping to film on Wednesday 1st of December. Yet, since we have not been able to get into college to book a camera, and the fact that college is closed on this day then filming is a no go. However, we are hoping that the snow will be cleared up by next week and we will be able to film on Wednesday 8th of December. Since Wednesday is our only day that we are all able to film then we are hoping that we can do it on this day. We are just needing to film the final part of our film, which shouldn't be a problem, if the weather clears up.

Behind The Scenes - Entwined

Just a little behind the scenes footage, it involves a tour around Connor's house where a large portion of Entwined is Set.

Enjoy.

Filming Update 3

Filming at Connor's house today went well, we got all shots needed for the first two scenes of our film.

Editing of them has now commenced, Any updates about filming and editing will appear here on the PCF Productions blog.

Filming Update 2

Filming on Friday 12th November went without a hitch, as of yet we do not need to re-film, but if it is needed , the blog will be updated.

Equipment that we used

The camera that we use for editing is a SONY HVR-1000 which is not a cheap piece of equipment. We did have a slight advantage of using this camera last year in our AS project so we were already aware on how to use the camera. We have very minimal problems, and due to us only filming in one location, which is inside, the microphone on this camera was more than good enough for the quality of our film. Ergo, this meant that we did not need to use a Zoom Recorder to record sound separately.

One slight problem that we have had this year would be the amount of tape space that we have used. Despite only being a 5 minute film, we did manage to fill our tape more than once, meaning that we had to over ride some of our previous footage. However, since our shots which we had done previously were already on the computer ready for editing, this means that we were able to rewind the tape and go back over previous footage. However, if we would have had it our way then we would have had more than one tape, so there was no risk of actually over riding footage.

When it comes to editing our film, we use Final Cut Express which is already installed onto the mac computers at our college. One thing that I like with final cut express is the ease of being able to just cut shots and put them next to each other, and if it wasn't for Final Cut Express we wouldn't have had the effect that allowed the character of Ryan to disappear. It allows us to export in the highest possible quality and we very rarely have problems when it comes to editing our film.

Film Poster Research

Our research into family films has shown quite a few conventions that stay the same, but of course they aren't always present.

Family films generally have a bright , happy and sometimes humorous look, This suits the film genre very well. The example i found is for a decently recent film named "The Spy Next Door" which follows the conventions i have found very well.

Whereas there are a few differences for a film in the Family/Drama crossover genre, My example is that of Twilight , Which has lost all of the standard conventions such as Bright colours, Humor etc. And instead sticks with a dark and moody look.

Our film Poster may end up somewhere between both of these posters, With a dark and moody look yet with glimmers of hope such as smiles, and colour etc.

Filming Update 1

Our group are due to start filming on Friday 12th of November, Our first scene will be in the large back-room in college and will be a scene consisting of a news presentation, The only actor on set will be James Allen whom will be playing the Newscaster.

Any updates for filming will be shown on this blog.

Costumes

Below, I will go into depth about what costumes each character will be wearing. This will be pretty easy, compared to last year, as since we are making a modern film in the present day then it's just a simple matter of wearing the clothes that we would normally wear. However, some clothes will have to be planned, and it may be an idea to use certain colours on certain characters to show a feeling or how the character actually is.

Ryan Fogg

One thing that we have to make sure during the filming over the 2 days, is that Ryan's character wears the exact same clothes. Because he is turned invisible, he is unable to get changed, meaning that to keep continuity, he will have to have the same clothes he has on when he disappeared. An idea for Ryan's costume would be to have him wearing darkish clothing, some grey/black jeans and a grey/black top. This can then relate to Ryan being in mourning over the death of the grandfather and also that he is quite a dull and depressed character.

Lewis Fogg

For Lewis, as we are filming over 2 different days, he will have 2 different sets of clothes on. Lewis will be wearing a bright and vibrant coloured t-shirt on the first day, and a more neutral colour on the second day. Again, this relates to the death of the grandfather as him wearing a colourful t-shirt then it shows that the death no longer affects him and the colour shows that he is a generally more happy and popular character compared to Ryan.

Jayne Fogg

This character will again require two different costumes as we are filming over two different days. Jayne will be required to wear neutral colours, to show that she is the neutral character within the film and the link between the two brothers.

Robert Sutton

This character is probably the hardest character to plan for, in terms of costume. A news-presenter is stereotypically wearing smart clothing, so we plan to have the character or Robert Sutton wearing a shirt and a tie. Since the shot of Robert Sutton reporting the news, will be a Medium Shot sat at the desk so it is not too important about what this character wears on the lower part of the body.

Genre Research

Our particular film is hard to designate one particular genre. Below are 3 different genres of film which I believe are present in our film idea. These genres may well change when we look at the final product.
Drama
Our film sort of fits into the genre of 'Drama' as we see something problematic happens within the story, and it has to be resolved. A drama is typically revolved around real world characters looking at real world problems. You could argue that the invisibility part of our film is not something that is a real world problem, yet the idea of the twins being an argument and having a rivalry after the death of a family member is a real world problem.
Examples of drama films would be;
Citizen Kane, Forrest Gump, The Shawshank Redemption.

Family
A family film is specifically designed to appeal to everybody in the family. The film entwined could well be this as we have younger characters, (around age 17) which young children could relate to, but also adults could see their point of view. Family films are designed to be bright and happy for the younger audience, but also have wittier jokes that can attract an adult audience. Again, our film not be considered 'bright' and 'happy' but with little 'pranks', this could keep a younger audience interesterd, as well as having a serious audience.
Examples of family films would be;
Dr.Dolittle, E.T, Home Alone.

Mystery
The main storyline behind a 'Mystery' film is that something out of the ordinary happens, and one of the other characters has to try and 'solve this mystery'. An other key aspect of a mystery, is that the audience knows what is going on, where characters in the film do not, and this is something that we will be doing with our short film. This genre relates most to our film, even though the characters in 'Entwined' don't know that Ryan has disappeared, it is eventually the emotion of Lewis that brings him back. The genre of 'Mystery' can relate back to the family and drama genre.
Examples of mystery films would be;
Freaky Friday, Inception, Psycho.

Filming Schedule

The current days in which we are planning to be filming are:

• 12th November 2010 - College

• 17th November 2010 - Connor's House

• 24th November 2010 - Connor's House

These are subject to change, and any filming changes or added days will be updated here.

Location Photos

Since we are filming the entirety of our film inside, with a few shots outside, then our location photos are pretty limited. Here are some of the rooms within the house that we will be filming in;

Ryan's Bedroom

This room shall be used throughout the film but the most important time that it will be used will be at the end of the film. When Lewis looks at the photo which he will pick up off the drawers on the far left picture, and then walk over to sit on the bed. As he looks down at the photo, with his elbows on his knees, he begins to cry as he is missing his brother. At which point, Ryan appears sat on the other bed, looking straight at him. They embrace in a hug before running back down the stairs to stop Jayne from ringing their Mum and Dad.

Garage

The garage will be used predominantly at the start of the film and will probably not be used again. It is used in our film when an argument occurs between both Ryan and Lewis in which Lewis storms out. A good thing about using the garage, is that the stairs can be used for some good camera angles. This is the exact room in which Ryan disappears after finding a pocket-watch. At which point Lewis returns to look in the garage for Ryan, to find out he is not there.

Front Room

This room shall be used quite a lot throughout our film. It is used at the very start, and then used again when they are watching the news in this room. The room is quite dark, but we should be filming it in the afternoon so if light is a problem, we will have to do the conventional methods of turning the light on.

Lewis' Bedroom

This bedroom shall be used mid-way through the film when Lewis shuts the door and then opens it up straight afterwards it, as it is a few days later. In which he then walks across the hallway, from his bedroom into the bathroom. No shots will be taken from inside the bedroom, but there will be some looking outside the bedroom.

Risk Assessment

Click To Enlarge all pictures.

BBFC talk

Today we attended a talk by the BBFC regarding certain age ratings in films, at the showroom in Sheffield. In our short film, we were hoping for our film to be a certificate 12A. However, when planning our script, near the end of the film, we used the word 'shit'. We were debating on whether to use this word and whether this swear word alone would push the certificate up to a 15. We also added this question into our audience research in to whether would expect any swearing in a 12 rated film, and the majority of the answers were either mild or in the right circumstance, so again this justifies the swear word in our script.

During the talk, we learnt that as long as we were not to use the 'F' or the 'C' word and every other swear word used, such as 'shit' is not used frequently then we are able to class it as a 12A.

Also, it was noted that the swear word should be used in the right circumstance and not involve any racial or discriminative remarks. In our script, the word is used to show a state of panic as Jayne is on the phone to Mum and Dad explaining that Ryan has gone missing. We believe, that this is a reasonable time to use this language and that it would not offend our audience, as it shows a state of panic.

Will there be uses of strong language in a ‘12’ or ‘12A’ work?
The BBFC's Guidelines state that there may be strong language (eg 'f***') at ‘12’ or ‘12A’, but it must be infrequent. The context of the strong language is important and aggressive uses of strong language may result in a film or DVD being placed at the ‘15’ category. There is some allowance for puns on strong language at this category. There may be moderate language (uses of terms such as ‘bitch’ and ‘twat’ at ‘12’ 0r ‘12A’.

Discriminatory language may be present but will not be endorsed by the work as a whole. Aggressive use of discriminatory language (for example homophobic or racist terms) is unlikely to be acceptable at ‘12’ or ‘12A’ unless it is clearly condemned,

Will there be uses of strong language in a ‘12A’ work?
The BBFC's Guidelines state that there may be strong language (eg 'f***') at ‘12A’, but it must be infrequent. The context of the strong language is important and aggressive uses of strong language may result in a film or DVD being placed at the ‘15’ category. There is some allowance for puns on strong language at this category.

This was taken straight off http://www.sbbfc.co.uk/categories_1212a/

The Grandfather

The Grandfather in our film is the hardest character that we have to fill in for. He won't be in the film, as he had died a few months previously. But, we have to have pictures of him in the film and also some little stories of him. I recently asked my Grandma if she had any photos of my deceased Grandfather and she has provided me with about 40 photos. Below are some of these photos.

Since my Grandfather served in the RAF, we will have to work this into the story-line. By creating a character profile on him, we can explain that he was in the RAF during the war and then after leaving the RAF, possibly due to an injury, that he became a clock-maker.

These photos will be used in our film at the very start, when Ryan and Jayne are looking through the photos and Ryan cries at them, as he misses his Grandfather. There could be a possible theme of these being found in a drawer as their Mum and Dad have told them to tidy out the garage, so we could work it into the story-line that these are found in the garage.

I didn't see much point in uploading all the photos that I got, onto the blog. Yet, it is worth noting that on the back of the picture below reads the message;

'Lots of love sweetheart

I'm always thinking of you

Love George x x x x x x x'

Again, this is another part which we could work into the story-line and could actually make it sentimental.

Last years work

Last year, when creating our 2 minute film we could have encountered some slight problems but luckily we avoided them. The biggest example of this would be that we didn't get enough shots and that we were relying on one shot to be good, and if this particular shot either didn't work, or was not in focus or the sound wasn't right then it could have ruined the entire film.

This year after planning part of our shot list we decided that we would like to do a minimum of 2 shots per every shot that we are wanting to do and then we can have the choice of which one we want to use. In some cases we may have 3 or 4 shots just for one little section, but at least this gives us some variety and we are not stuck if one shot doesn't particularly work.

This is the project that Josh and Connor completed last year (along with 2 others);


This is the project that Luke and James completed last year (along with 2 others);


Both videos were completely different but both had good ideas and good shots. A problem that Josh and Connor had was that the storyline was quite complicated and had to get the right costumes and the right location. A problem with Luke and James was that some people didn't turn up on the particular day. In this project, we have tried to combat these problems by having a modern day storyline, and also by only relying on one other person who is not part of our media group, and everyone else is part Pigs Can't Fly Productions. This way, the costumes are not hard to do as we can wear just our normal clothing, and if an unfortunate coincidence does happen, and people can't make shooting, then it will not be too hard to rearrange.

Camera Shot Research

This is our camera shot research we conducted, just as a practice before we do actual filming. Below us in detail, what we plan to do with each shot, how well it went, and what we'll change.

Shot 1 - Change Clothes.

We are going to try to encorperate this into our storyline and we originally got the idea for the shot off the trailer for the film 'Freaky Friday'. It is be used in our film when Lewis will close the door as to be going to bed, in his pyjamas and then in a split second and change his clothes, as to indicate the next day. A slight problem that we had when practicisng this shot would be that the door we were using was not great, and Connor had to dig his fingers in to open the door. However, when we are actually filming, it will be a proper door, with a fixed handle, so won't be a problem.

Shot 2 - Walk through camera.

This shot is going to be used when Lewis walks from his room to the bathroom, and the following shot is where 'HELP' is wrote on the mirror. A slight problem we had when filming this would be that it struggles to focus when Connor walks away from the camera. We talked to our teacher about this and a way to fix this would be to zoom the camera lense in, so that were not having to walk so close to the camera.

Shot 3 - Stairs shot.

In our film we are going to have the scene in which one of the two boys runs down the stairs. This was just a simple exercise of having the shot at the top of the stairs and then cutting half-way down to a different camera shot. The shot worked fine and was quite easy just to cut both of the shots, get them both in the right position and then merge them together.

Shot 4 - Writing Help.

This is by far the hardest shot that we will have to do, and we have only put together a rough edit of what we are planning to do. By simply writing Help on the board, and doing it stages, then stepping back and drawing another line, we are hoping to create the effect that somebody is writing but actually nobody is there. This is by far the most ambitious shot that we plan to do in our film. We originally had a problem with the practice shot as the floorboards were not very sturdy and caused the camera to move. This will not be a problem for when we are filming as we are doing it on tiles, so the camera will not move. Also, we will be turning the shower on and writing the message on the condensation on the mirror, so this may be harder because we may get drip marks but using a whiteboard was the best way to test it.

In our actual film, the writing on the board will be done by a series of wipes which will either wipe vertically or horizontally to give the effect that the 'HELP' is actually being written by Ryan, who turns invisible.

Overall all shots seems succesful and we are planning to use all these shots in our final piece.

Audience Research

This is our audience research we have conducted as to provide an insight into a target audience for our 5 minute film. We asked the questions which are on our Audience questionnaire, and on the video we have shown the best 3 answers which we received. The answers will be used in the shaping of our film and have a final effect on some aspects of the Storyline, Dialogue and Age rating. Here is the video that we have made;



We gathered a lot of results from our audience research, and used only the 3 best answers for each question (apart from the last question; 'what would you do if you were invisible for a day?') We will try to correlate some graphs with some of the results which can be put into graphs, as said before, this audience research will have a shaping in the overall making of our film.

Film Name Design

This will be our logo for our film title. We think that this works well as it highlights the twin within the title and since the film is all about a set of twins and the fact that their lives are entwined. As a tagline, we are going to have 'The Fate of One, Rests With The Other'. This will appear on our film at the start shortly after our production logo is shown.

I decided to add the pocket-watch behind the logo as it makes it more relevant to our film. In our film, Ryan touches the Granddad's pocket-watch and becomes invisible. After doing this design, I realised that it would be ideal to add the tag-line to the logo, so I set about doing this.

I added the tag-line 'The fate of one, rests with the other...'. Connor originally came up with this tag-line and it fits perfectly with our film. When possibly adding this to our film, it might be ideal to introduce different parts of the title, at different times. Maybe, firstly showing the pocket-watch, followed by 'Entwined', followed by the tag-line.

After re-looking at this particular logo, I am undecided on whether to have the tag-line as 'The fate of one, rests with the other...' or 'The fate of one, lies with the other...', this could be a possible thing to ask some of our target audience.