Today we went up to central London to get the first half of our filming done. I think this went sucessfully, despite it being extremely tiring!
We started off in Oxford Circus and tried a range of camera shots and angles to help portray the London atmosphere. I think we achieved this well, because we got a good range of different perspectives of London, and we got some iconic imagery in their such as the Big Ben, London Eye, Oxford Street signs etc.
Tonight I'm going to film a few bedroom shots, because my wall has a good collection of fashionable imagery such as magazine adverts and editorial pictures, which portrays the character's ambitions. Although we are not using my bedroom for the whole morning routine/bedroom scene, we can always just use one part of my bedroom and then use a seperate location for the rest of it.
Hopefully it'll go well!
Thursday, 24 February 2011
Thursday, 17 February 2011
He's Just Not That Into You
A film similar to the genre we are doing is He's Just Not That Into You. The film is based on a novel and one of the characters is quite quirky and aloof in her actions. This character may resemble our character that we are having in our own film.
Although I couldn't find the beginning of the film, I have a video of the trailer.
The bell has gone, and I have to go to my next lesson, will update more later!
Sophie's toast!
One of our group members, Sophie, had tested out the "beans on toast credits" idea.
Personally, I think it looks fantastic and definitely has the "quirky" look we wanted to achieve in our film.
The words are very clear against the toast, which is good because it is obviously very important that the credits are easy to read. Another idea was that after the words are shown, more baked beans could be poured on top to erase the credits. We think beans on toast is a good idea as it portrays a quirky character, but the beans can show lack of wealth since beans are quite cheap.
We are now going to discuss mise-en-scene items that is going to be in the bedroom scene.
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
Costume
Found a site which enables me to create costumes. These will not be the exact costumes worn on set.
This is for the dream sequence:
This next costume is for after the dream sequence:
(Pajamas)
(Work clothes)
That's all for now on costumes! This is sort of a mood board to get a brief idea on the types of outfits that will be needed on set.
This is for the dream sequence:
This next costume is for after the dream sequence:
(Pajamas)
(Work clothes)
That's all for now on costumes! This is sort of a mood board to get a brief idea on the types of outfits that will be needed on set.
I'm back!
I've finally reached home from abroad, and I can get into some filming with the rest of my group.
I have been updated by my group on new ideas, mostly on the concept of the credits. Instead of the conventional ways of presenting opening credits, which is usually just font over the footage, a "quirky" way of presenting credits will be used.
For example, a piece of toast comes out of the toaster with a name and then the name is erased with Philadelphia soft cheese. The different placements of the credits will represent the life of the protagonist, for example, credits on her laptop, phone and iPod. Instead of the protagonist grabbing an apple, they will grab a work folder, which is much more representative of the character.
We now need to discuss actors and costume, since it is important that the protagonist looks older (earlier/mid-twenties)
I have been updated by my group on new ideas, mostly on the concept of the credits. Instead of the conventional ways of presenting opening credits, which is usually just font over the footage, a "quirky" way of presenting credits will be used.
For example, a piece of toast comes out of the toaster with a name and then the name is erased with Philadelphia soft cheese. The different placements of the credits will represent the life of the protagonist, for example, credits on her laptop, phone and iPod. Instead of the protagonist grabbing an apple, they will grab a work folder, which is much more representative of the character.
We now need to discuss actors and costume, since it is important that the protagonist looks older (earlier/mid-twenties)
Friday, 4 February 2011
Old research
Just posting some older research into genres and composition of mise-en-scene, sound, editing, etc.
| Name of film | Style of Titles (colour, size, font) | What sound is evident? (think of different layers?) | Key mise-en-scene (colour, lighting, props, actors, costumes, setting) | Editing (speed of cutting/transitions) and camera work (common shot types) |
| 1. Dude, Where’s My Car?
2. The Perfect Man
3. It’s A Boy, Girl Thing | “psychedelic” theme, colourful, bold, bright
“A Mark Kisman Film” etc. on a black background in pink lettering.
“Icon Pictures Presents”… cartoon style “handwriting” lettering à possibly to reflect childish behaviour between the two characters? | Hippie, 90’s/80’s pop music
Starts off with soft music, and then becomes quiet for conversation between characters. For a road journey, it kicks in with a female singer singing soft rock.
Soft music, reflecting actions of the cartoon characters. Hip-hop music, speech of the girl when she is reading Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. | Nebula space background, unusual characters dancing “oldies” dancing”, muscular-looking men
Teenagers, a woman who may be a mother yet she looks young and pretty. A beautifully, decorated cake, very bright lighting. Drive into an urban city and sunrise – suggests new beginnings?
Cartoon of a boy and girl in conflict as they grow up through the years. Tree in the middle gets bigger, to show the passing of time. Fades into real life, girl reading Shakespeare, difference in rich and poor, rich upper-middle class and lower-middle class living next to each other. Boy dancing to hip hop in their room. The two argue from their windows opposite each other. | “20th Century Fox”, amateur transitions such as wipe, swirl, “clock”, warp, etc. pan of the camera. No “real-time” shots at all. All CGI with nebula background and actors dancing.
Opening credits of names fade onto the screen and fade out, so on and so forth. Cast and crew name credits continue against car journey conversation scene
|
Monday, 31 January 2011
Abroad
Since I had to rush abroad for a family emergency, I decided to use the films available on the plane to my advantage. I watched two films; one a romantic comedy starring Jennifer Aniston "The Switch" and a drama named "The Social Network".
The Switch was about an unmarried 40 year-old woman who turns to a turkey baster in order to become pregnant through a sperm donor. Seven years later she reunites with her best friend, who has been living with a secret, he replaced her preferred sperm sample with his own.
The overall mood of the film has a very light atmosphere, and the opening of the film has a starting very similar to "Love Actually" as Jason Bateman's character narrates a busy urban street of people rushing around, getting on with their day-to-day lives. In Love Actually, Hugh Grant narrates with a philosophical speech about "love" as different people embrace at an airport. In The Switch, Jason Bateman has a similar philosophical speech about the human race.
The second film I watched, The Social Network, has received a lot of a recognition, gaining an award for Best Motion Picture - Drama at the 68th Golden Globe Awards, and also won awards for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Original Score. It has also been nominated 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
The film is a chronicle of the founding of Facebook, the social-networking website. Although the film doesn't exactly fit into the genre that we are doing for our film opening, I feel that certain elements of drama can be appropriate for our film as there are serious aspects in our film as well. The opening of The Social Network is very different to The Switch, as it jumps straight to a conversation between two characters. The lighting is dark and all the focus is on the two characters.
There is no setting of the scene and it is very straight to the point, even though the setting is very important in this film, which is Harvard; where Facebook was originated by Mark Zuckerberg. After approximately 5 minutes of heated conversation between the two characters, the character of Mark Zuckerberg leaves and it shows a long shot of the pub the characters were sitting in and the opening credits begin to kick in. Then the camera starts to focus on shots of the Harvard campus afterward. The title of the film is shown in the "Facebook font" style, to give recognition to what the film is about. After the title of the film, the credits then begins to introduce the actors involved in the film such as Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake. After panning over the Harvard campus, the camera cuts back to Zuckerberg's character running through campus until he reaches his dorm room and sits in front of his laptop. Everything in the first 10 minutes of the film is highly unpredictable and remains throughout. I think this is an important factor in the film.
However, it is important that certain elements of my chosen genre should be represented so the audience are not too confused.
Will post more later.
The Switch was about an unmarried 40 year-old woman who turns to a turkey baster in order to become pregnant through a sperm donor. Seven years later she reunites with her best friend, who has been living with a secret, he replaced her preferred sperm sample with his own.
The overall mood of the film has a very light atmosphere, and the opening of the film has a starting very similar to "Love Actually" as Jason Bateman's character narrates a busy urban street of people rushing around, getting on with their day-to-day lives. In Love Actually, Hugh Grant narrates with a philosophical speech about "love" as different people embrace at an airport. In The Switch, Jason Bateman has a similar philosophical speech about the human race.
The second film I watched, The Social Network, has received a lot of a recognition, gaining an award for Best Motion Picture - Drama at the 68th Golden Globe Awards, and also won awards for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Original Score. It has also been nominated 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
The film is a chronicle of the founding of Facebook, the social-networking website. Although the film doesn't exactly fit into the genre that we are doing for our film opening, I feel that certain elements of drama can be appropriate for our film as there are serious aspects in our film as well. The opening of The Social Network is very different to The Switch, as it jumps straight to a conversation between two characters. The lighting is dark and all the focus is on the two characters.
There is no setting of the scene and it is very straight to the point, even though the setting is very important in this film, which is Harvard; where Facebook was originated by Mark Zuckerberg. After approximately 5 minutes of heated conversation between the two characters, the character of Mark Zuckerberg leaves and it shows a long shot of the pub the characters were sitting in and the opening credits begin to kick in. Then the camera starts to focus on shots of the Harvard campus afterward. The title of the film is shown in the "Facebook font" style, to give recognition to what the film is about. After the title of the film, the credits then begins to introduce the actors involved in the film such as Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake. After panning over the Harvard campus, the camera cuts back to Zuckerberg's character running through campus until he reaches his dorm room and sits in front of his laptop. Everything in the first 10 minutes of the film is highly unpredictable and remains throughout. I think this is an important factor in the film.
However, it is important that certain elements of my chosen genre should be represented so the audience are not too confused.
Will post more later.
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