R+P Post 20: Reflections so far/looking ahead

Reflections so far:
I think that so far, our work as a group has been okay but has not completely shown what we can achieve. Although on one hand we have improved in our technical skills of planning, researching, shooting and editing, on the other hand we have some serious flaws in our opening sequence that will need to be rectified so that we can say that we have made the best effort that we can. We have continued to work well as a group for the most part despite disagreeing on a few small ideas.

Looking ahead:
Before we complete the main shoot, I think we need to redraft some aspects of our sequence including, especially the storyline and the location. The feedback we received for our rough edit told us that the storyline of the stalker trying to emulate the stalkee wasn't clear enough, so I think that as a group we need to re-evaluate that idea and make it simpler.

R+P Post 19: Our rough cut

This is our rough cut:

Putting together our rough cut and editing it using Adobe Premier Pro was useful because it allowed us to see how well we could edit the shots together, if the titles were effective, if we successfully achieved continuity and if the music fit well with the shots.

After reviewing the finished rough cut we decided to make changes to our sequence as we felt that at that time it was not successfully follow the guidelines of the brief. I think this is why it was so important for us to complete the rough cut.

R+P Post 18: Our test shoot

Our test shoot was unfortunately not as successful as we hoped, however it did help us make many drastic but positive changes that helped us better our project.

There were many problems that we encountered during our filming:

My room, our initial filming location

• One group member down (due to exchange trip) - this was unavoidable and although we did manage to fill in for Gabriel's absence, it would have been useful to have a complete group
• Started filming late - a few travel inconveniences caused us to start around an hour later than expected. This had severe consequences later on in the day as we ran out of daylight, so for the final shots we had to switch the light on which disrupted the continuity
• Small space - the initial location we decided to film our opening sequence in was my bedroom. However, we found that the space was too tight to film in and it severely affected the quality of the shots as we could not achieve shots such as tracks or pans effectively.
• Insufficient props/cast - the main thing we decided to test in our test shoot was how well we could execute the shots and whether the storyline would work. As a result of this, we lacked the proper props and the actor that we should have had. Although this was planned, it did have a slight detrimental effect to the outcome of our test shoot as it did not turn out as good as we thought.

Despite the stressful and unsuccessful test shoot, it was a huge learning curve for us. In the week following the test shoot, we made major changes to our sequence including the storyline and location as a result of the lessons we had learned from the test shoot.

R+P Post 17: Our planned costumes and props, hair and make-up

In order to have good characterisation, I along with the group created a costume list for our characters. This included guidelines on their hair and make-up, costume and reference points that we used to influence our decisions. The costume list helped us as it showed us what costumes we would need to source and bring to the shoots.

For references, we tried to find characters from other British programmes or films that would be similar to the UK indie film that we would be creating. The Inbetweeners was a strong reference for us as the characters (especially Carly and Simon) wore quite plain, basic outfits that would be easy to recreate but still connoted the fact that they were normal teenagers. Katie from Skins (right) was the reference for the character of Ella because she is portrayed as the "ideal" almost stuck up girl through her make-up, clothes and jewellery. 

Simon and Carly from the Inbetweeners, used as references
for Anthony and Grace.

R+P Post 16: Casting

For our main shoot we created a cast list. This included the names of the characters, a brief description of their background, a head shot of the actor and details of the actor.

We chose Celine to play our main character, Grace, because we felt that due to the fact that she did A-Level drama, she would be a confident and capable actor. Furthermore contributed to the racial diversity that we were aiming for in producing our sequence.

Josh and I were chosen to play the characters with brief roles, Ella and Anthony because we decided that it would be easier to organise rather than have to rely on two extra actors. It would be also be easier as due to the small size of the roles, it would not be worth asking two people to give up their time for.

The cast list was useful in briefing our actors as it helped them step into the character and gain some quick knowledge of them.

R+P Post 15: Our planned filming location and set design

For our filming, we chose to use Gabriel's house as our only shooting location. We felt this would enhance our project as it would be easier than transporting the kit around, which meant we could spend this valuable time on our shots. Additionally, the bedroom we used was quite simply decorated which would help us as it meant we didn't have to make any major changes to the set, apart from adding a few props.

We created a prop list in order to organise which props we needed to bring to the set on the shooting days. The props were essential for our sequence as they connoted the personality and motives of our main character, Grace. For example the mood board which we created showcased the extent to her stalking, and the knife, camera and gloves suggested the murder that would occur later in our film.

On the right is the set and prop list which we used for the main shoot.

R+P Post 14: Our call sheet

We created a call sheet for our main shoot in order to help it run smoothly and provide information to our group and cast. We included our location address, mobile numbers for our cast and production team, health and safety precautions, and call times for both our group and our cast.

Please click on the call sheet to enlarge to a detailed version.

R+P Post 13: Our shoot-board

We created a shootboard to organise our shots chronologically and add more detailed information to them. We added the location, timings, description, actors and props, and roles for our group. Additionally we included space to note down how many takes of each shot we took and which one was the best to help us while editing. The storyboard significantly helped us coordinate ourselves efficiently while we filmed our opening sequence.

R+P Post 12: Our animatic

To create our animatic we took still images based off the drawings on our storyboard and edited them together using Adobe Premiere Pro. We also added rough dialogue and the soundtrack which helped us visualise our sequence and trial the timings of each shot.

The animatic was useful because we were able to adjust the timings of the shots for the length of the dialogue, and ensure that our sequence fulfilled the correct two minute length as briefed to us.

R+P Post 11: Our timeline and storyboard

Our timeline
The first thing we did in order to plan our opening sequence was create a timeline. We did this by gluing pieces of A3 paper together and splitting it into three tracks: video, audio and dialogue. The timeline was used to plan out the rough events that would occur in our sequence and the duration of them. We found the timeline to be extremely useful to refer back to when we created our storyboard.

Our storyboard
We created our storyboard using a large piece of sugar paper and coloured sticky notes, with each colour denoting a shot type. The colour key went as follows:

• Green - Close up
• Orange - Mid shot
• Yellow - Long shot
• Pink - Titles

The colour coding was useful as we could assess whether we had used a variation of shot types, as stated in our task guidelines. We drew the basic shots in pencil on the sticky notes which made it easy to rearrange the order of them and add and remove shots.