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Unit 8
Initial idea's:
1 - A short film of a rapper/songwriter rising to fame and the struggles they had to face on the way.
2 - A documentry about a video game champion and how they became famous in esport.
3 - A boy has the power to go back in time but he only uses it to suit his needs.
The third idea for the film came from the movie edge of tomorrow where Tom Cruise is sent to a military base by accident and is forced to fight Aliens that are invading Earth, on the battlefield he kills one and its blood gets on him which lets him go back in time but only when he dies and only to the point where he was sent to the military base. The character in my film is based off of a video game character called Ekko who is able to go back to any point in time due to a machine he made.
The second idea is based on a documentry about esports that was aired on the BBC. My idea was to have a actor play as a esports champion and the camera's are shadowing him, they see what training is like, meeting the manager/coach etc. The games that were going to be featured were League of legends, Overwatch, Paladins CS:GO and super smash bros.
The first idea is based on the documentry straight out of Compton. It would follow the artist was they go through the struggles of life before rising to fame.
Rationale: Throughout the units, 1-7, I did very poorly. During units 1 and 2 I did not do very well with planning research or pre-production as writing is not my strong point, however, I gradually got better as we went through the units. I also saw myself get better and more comfortable with editing. Before joining I was not very comfortable with using photoshop or premiere pro but now I am able to use both to a decent standard. This has had an influence on the path I choose to pursue; I now want to become a professional editor.
April 18, Tuesday: Today I Came up with three main idea's for my final major project. I settled with the third idea as I preferred that over the rest of them and when I asked my class which was better majority said the third idea. I later write up my 100 word rational about what What I was doing throughout the year as well as what I was doing before collage and the path I now choose to pursue. Next I will need to begin to look at examples of time travel movies and such in order to gain ideas for my production.
Project concept: The concept of the film is a boy who can travel back in time using a pocket watch. The concept of Time/time travel is what I aim to promote. To help develop this I will have to look at time travel tv-shows and movie where the protagonist(s) or antagonist(s) are going backwards or forward in time. This point I will have to focus on the most as it could help me when editing since some people tend to use light effects to signify the character(s) going back in time. I anticipate to produce something that is somewhat of a Sci-fi film; by using light effects I will hopefully be able to create the notion of time travel. Our final major project is due in June the 9th; I will have a timetable for the recording sessions all planned out so that I have time to edit and upload it as well as having the poster finished a week before the due date.
Evaluation: When evaluating my work I will make sure to pay attention to detail and give a full description of the steps I took in order to fashion it to what I want. As my work progresses I will be sure to audio record any and all changes that are made along the way. I will do a day-by-day written or audio description of the process leading towards the final product.
The Idea for this came from a movie called edge of tomorrow/Live die repeat. Where Tom Cruise is sent to a military base and is forced to fight against aliens, the aliens blood gets spilt on him him and every time he dies he goes back to when he first joined the military.
Audience - My target audience are people who like to watch Sci-fi, fantasy based movies and are ages 15-25.
Sci-fi conventions: Sci-fi movies use multiple special effects (e.g CGI, green screen). The setting for most Sci-fi movies is an alternate timeline, the future, or a contradictory historical past. The movies are usually on another world, outer space or an alternate Earth. As for Narrative there is usually a development in new technology, new scientific principles or a utopian society where there is conflict between good and evil. There are usually futuristic props that are used to emphasize when and where the movie is set and to show the scientific advancement.
April 19 Wednesday: Today I research conventions of Sci-fi movies to help me with production and editing. After that I began writing my project concept highlighting what my final major project will be about and what I aim to do to make it seem like a sci-fi movie. Next I write up an evaluation explaining how I will evaluate my work to ensure I get a high grade. The next thing I will need to do is, use the conventions to help build guidelines for my production and the my primary/secondary research.
Project action plan and timetable: The first week I will be writing a script for the movie making sure I have the entire film written out then I will draw a sketch for the poster of the film. The second week I will record the film, I will be sure to record each scene a number of times to make sure I get the perfect shot each, shot will be from different angles and I will take photo's of the actors and some locations we were filming in for, the poster. The third week I will begin editing the film and gathering any effects I may want or need to use. Week four I will be creating the poster. Week 5 everything will be uploaded and I will be writing/ recording my evaluation of the out come of the final major project.
Outline of final idea:
Synopsis: My short film will be about a boy who is able to travel back in time but only does it to benefit himself, If he is late for the bus he'd go back so that he gets to the bus stop before the bus arrives or if he is late to something he'd go back so that he is 2 minutes early. The boy uses a tool that allows him to travel back in time so that he can cheat in life by giving himself multiple chances. My movie is about a boy that uses a pocket watch to travel back in time. Unlike most everyday people if he misses the bus he'll go back two minutes before the bus arrives and be there to catch it a second time, he would go back in time over and over again until he gets something perfect.
Proposed research sources and bibliography
April 25, Tuesday: Today I had Harvard referenced the movies that I will use as inspiration for my short film. I then write up my project action plan and timetable to help me organize the time spent doing research and filming. I had soon later written up a synopsis of my short film highlighting what it will be about. Finally I made my bibliography using Harvard referencing. I later began working on my secondary research as, for my primary research I was going interview my target audience, for my secondary research I started evaluating movies and took screen shots of scenes that I could try and recreate during my production. What I Will need to do next is edit my interview and upload it to Wix so that I can look back on it and make sure that I am using the feedback to help with my production.
The three students I interviewed say that they enjoy watching Sci-fi movies and like the concept of time travel with in the movies, the students are aged 17, 20 and 21. They all say that they like the different ways that time travel is used in Sci-fi movies as different directors have different ways of using it for example: One director might make the person's surroundings change therefore the person has gone back in time or another director would make the character start vibrating and then they disappear from where they are and end up in the past or future. For green screen and effects two said that there should be lazers and bright lights whilst the other person said the effects should mostly be when the character is traveling through time, when editing the film I could add the light effects as well as using the whirlwind idea. Between the three of them two said that my short film should be in more than one location, I will have to look at multiple locations that may be good for me to use. Two out of the three said that having the character vibrate then leave the timeline would be good, from this I know that I will have to get multiple shots of the character and edit them so that it seems as if they're vibrating. When asked what I should use as the tool for to let the character time travel two of them said A pocket watch as its original and for sentimentality, so a pocket watch would be my best choice. For the final question all the students said that there should be sound effects when the person is traveling through time ranging from and engine to silly/gimmicky noises(doing, boop etc).
Survey results: From this I know that most of my audience like to watch sci-fi movies especially ones with time travel in it. One of m ideas was that the main character would use a tool (A phone or watch) that lets them go back in time, I wanted to make it a pocket watch, as from my video interview, a pocket watch was the popular choice. In the survey I asked what title would be good for my film and the second option "Chronoshift" was the most popular choice.
26 April, Wednesday Today I edited an interview with three of my target audience. I asked them a few questions about Sci-fi movies and their thoughts on sci-fi movies. Later I collected the data from my survey and I write an evaluation on it, I then took screenshots of the data and posted them on my blog. I began working on my secondary research, I linked trailers to my blog and took screen shots of certain scenes that I thought I could use in my Final major project. I will need to take all the feedback in to consideration when making my film as my target audience told me what things they wanted to see. Next I will need to complete my secondary research in order to get a wider idea of what I want out of my production as well as using my primary research to help.
Secondary research -
The style of edge of tomorrow is, in some cases, modern with some futuristic technology and futuristic aliens. The costumes are modern day army gear e.i. the significant green and brown camouflage suit and big leather boots. The location for edge of tomorrow is London and Paris. The production team rebuilt parts of Heathrow airport, art gallery La Louvre and Place de la Concorde (during the making of the film, the production team had to build the beach that was used and then had to place a giant green screen around it for all the visual effects in the film). Edge of tomorrow is based off of the light novel "All you need is kill", the movie follows tom cruise as he sent to a military base to film the landing of the military soldiers. He is then thrown into the camp is sent into the fight himself even though he has no training at all, when fighting the aliens known as 'Mimics', the blood of a Alpha was spilt on him which allowed him to go back to the previous day whenever he died. I will the concept of going back in time, this will influence my production as my film is about time travel and using Edge of Tomorrow as inspiration will allow me to shape the production to what I want it to be.
In edge of tomorrow, every time Tom Cruise died he'd wake up at the point in time where he was first sent to the military base. With most movies or t.v shows that have time as a theme, they show off the side effects of time travel such as: If you go back in time and interact with yourself it will create a time paradox or if you go back in time and change something about you or someone else, something worse will replace what you changed.
The butterfly effect has a 1990's type of style to it. From looking at the costume you can see that the characters are in the late 90's. The butterfly effect was filmed in various locations around British columbia, Canada. The film The butterfly effect is based off of a theory called "butterfly effect" which is a part of the "Chaos theory" which illustrates that small changes could lead to dramatic effects for example: In a report a man said he'd given two girls $50 each and told them to do something good with it, later he was sent an email by a village in Africa with a message that said "thanks a lot Chris Rosati".
Each time Ashton Kutcher went back in time in 'The Butterfly Effect' there is a ripple effect that happens where whoever or whatever is in his sight, begins distorting and then he is sent to the past. I will use this in my short film, I will have a shot of me standing still then I will have a shot of me in front of a green screen but, in editing I will use the greens screen shot to create a distorting effect making it seem like I am disappearing.
The style of Looper is a distant future with modern day weapons. The actors are wearing always waring dark colours throughout the movie. The movie looper was filmed in Louisiana, USA in Thibodaux, new Orleans and Napoleonville. Loopers narrative is to prove that, based on Einstein's theory of relativity, Time travel to the future or past is possible.
The use of a pocket watch is nice as no one uses pocket watches anymore, people prefer to use a wrist watch or a mobile phone to check the time. In my short film the my character will be using a pocket watch as it is associated with time but it will also give the character a certain effect as no one uses a pocket watch now days.
The gray and orange skies in the poster give off the image of it being a post apocalyptic world, from the weapons and padding the two characters have, it shows that the world is also at war. The font is a military style font which backs up the thought of it being a war based movie. The two main characters are placed to the left of the poster to show off the rest of the image, being a torn down Paris, with the title and slogan in the center. The colours used are gray, orang, red, green and white. The slogan Live. Die. Repeat. is reference to daily life (Eat, Work, Sleep, Repeat) but in this case it's Live, Die, Repeat as Tom cruise' Character comes back after death
The style of looper is different to Edge of tomorrow not just because Looper isn't war/post apocalyptic but both use the concept of time, however, Looper presents it differently as in most time based tv shows or movies, when the bad future is erased they turn into sand like the poster. The sand makes the characters look as if they're vanishing into thin air. The font looks like a normal type of text with the two clock hands in one of the O's giving a hint to what the movie may be about. The main image shows the two characters with their body turning into sand. They use blue and dark blue for the background, the dark blue is like a mist that goes over the light blue behind it.
The style of the poster has a matrix sort of feeling to it, the blue makes the characters seem ghost like. The two characters where put into the background, Ashton Kutcher's character has a butterfly in his eye as a symbol of the movie. They use black and light blue for the background colours and red for the text, The blue makes Amy Smart and Ashton Kutcher look ghost like. 'Change one thing, change everything' is the slogan they use for the movie, it is significant to the movie because in the movie it tells the viewers that going back in time, and changing things, will have consequences.
This is a link to a website that holds multiple stories of people traveling through time. I can use the experiences these people had to show that my character is time traveling, which will give the film more effect.
This is one of the stories that are on the website. It talks about a newspaper reporter and his colleague who were caught a preview of an air raid after a tour of a shipyard in Hamburg. When the two left they there was no inferno's or gray skies. The two saw the air raid in 1932 and then the exact same air raid they witnessed took palace in 1943, the two men had seen it 11 years early.
May 1st, Monday: Today I evaluated posters for the movie trailers I watched as well as gain inspiration from them. I want to use the shades of blue in the movie "The Butterfly effect" and have a dark background like in the "Looper" poster. I began looking at stories of time travel to further my research and to give me more ideas for what I can do in my production.
Planning+poster
Locations:
My film will be shot in West Norwood, Brixton, Clapham old town and Battersea park. The main character will be going on a bus from West Norwood to Brixton, in Brixton they'll miss the second bus then go back in time so they can catch it. They will be meeting their friends in Clapham common then walk through Clapham old town to get to Battersea park.
Character profile
Sound:
In the beginning the main character will be listening to a instrumental ,that I extracted in Audacity, while he is making his way to the bus stop as well as while he's on the bus. I will have some background noise as we will be outside so we will have cars driving by, I will also record the main character quoting the slogan of the film at the end.
Light:
In the recording I will us natural light as my film will be outside, but, I will use a filter to make the film look brighter and more vibrant. When editing I will also be using a lens flare to show that my character is going back in time.
Props:
I will be using a pocket watch as the tool that lets the main character go back in time, I will also use a fake knife for the murder weapon.
Amazon: £6.99, Black Roman Retro Vintage Quartz Pocket Watch
Amazon: £1.37, Trick Dagger Retractable Blade Fake Knife
Poster plan
The main character will be played by me in the short film so I decided to draw a cartoon character similar to myself.
The title "Chronoshift" was the one that was most popular in the survey I did. I will make the text Azure blue.
In the making of the poster, I will have a black background with the main character in front of the arrow with dark blue copies trailing behind him.
May 2, Tuesday: Today I did my planning and poster draft. I collected Images of Locations I would like my film to be set and had written up a character profile, collected images of the props I will use and finally, drew my poster plan and evaluated it. Next I will need to begin making my poster, I will need to get the font type and create the different layers for the images, text and background.
Preproduction:
Script:
Story bored
May 3, Wednesday: Today I managed to finish writing my script at 11:30. Finally I drew my story board highlighting certain scenes in my short film.When making my storyboard I forgot to add how long each shot will take, I will have to remember to add that next time. I will need to finish my preproduction and move on to making my poster. When making my poster I will need to take a photo of in front of a green screen so when I edit the poster I don't have to use the eraser tool and make a mess of things.
Risk assessment:
May 8, Monday: I Write up my risk assessment, other than dropping the camera and cars/buses, there wasn't much to write for the risk assessment. During this time I did not think about the possibility of a terrorist attacks as I had made this a month in advance. Next I will need to create a Location report and shot list for the locations i'm filming in, I will need to make sure that I add the length of each shot in the shot list.
Shot list
Location report:
May 9, Tuesday: I finished typing up my shot list, I listed every angle, actor, sound, movement and dialogue. I then looked back over my secondary research to see what else I could add, I found a site that had stories about people who had travelled through time and decided to add it to the research, I Harvard referenced it and added the link to my blog. I later Complete my location report of the four locations I will be filming in. Next I will need to begin working on my poster as I did not manage to do it before.
May 10, Wednesday: Today I began working on my poster for my short film. I started off by creating the separate layers, I made the first two layers be the title and slogan of my short film. I then went to the TV studio and took a photo of the main character in the film. I will need to finish making my poster and get the rest of my footage.
May 15, Monday: Today I went out filming with three others, We went to my first location and filmed me making my way to the bus garage in West Norwood. We took the bus in to brixton and got a few shots in Brixton. After getting some of my film done, we went to streatham to help film Angus' final major project. Next I need to go to clapham and film the few shots that I need.
May 16, Tuesday: We went to streatham again to film the rest of Angus' film that was in streatham. We then went to Wandsworth common to begin filming Joe's final major project, we got some transitional shots and filmed the first scene.
May 17, Wednesday: Today we went went back to Wandsworth common to film more of Joe's final major project, we were unable to get shots that he was happy with so we went back to collage and filmed more of Angus' final major project. We uploaded and edited the footage that we collected.
May 22, Monday: Today we went to the Tv studio and filmed the fight scene in Angus' final major project, he set up some lights in a circle to highlight everything and to make the area seem like a stage. We later took photo's for bot me and Angus' poster as well as got a green screen shot for my time travel effect. Next I need to create the effect in premiere, I plan on creating vibration effect with a lens flare going over the character.
May 23, Tuesday: Today we went to wandsworth common with Joe and filmed the drug deal scene in his short film we later went back to college to go into a classroom and shot Angus' classroom scene were he would meet Joe and they would talk about a meeting Joe's character did not attend.
May 24, Wednesday: Today we went to battersea park and filmed the ending of my final major project, I then went to get some transitional shots. We then came back to college, I uploaded the footage and finished my poster.
May 25, Thursday: Today I came into to collage to edit my footage. Whilst editing I realized that I wasn't able to create my initial idea for the character traveling back in time so I decided to create a glitch effect to replace it.
May 29, Monday: Today I met up with Joe and we went to Brixton to finish filming my final major project. We then went to Clapham, old town to get the final shots I needed. Next I will need to edit the final footage, I will add the new footage to the edit
June 5, Monday: Today I added the audio for the ending to my film, I recorded the audio on Saturday night and edited it. I need to add the new audio to the ending of the edit as I plan to have a monologue at the end.
June 6, Tuesday: Today I recorded audio and edited it in Auditions. When I recorded the audio there was a echo in the background so I needed to get rid of it using Auditions. I later added all the audio to my final major project and adjusted the volume of the background noise and the audio. At the end of my final major project I added the title of the film as well as a quote. later I finished making my poster and saved it as a jpeg. Tomorrow I will need to finish my production, have it rendered and uploaded to my blog.
June 7, Wednesday: Today I finished my final major project and rendered it, I later write up and evaluation of both my poster and final major project then had a screening and showed it to the rest of the class.
Evaluation:
First edit
Second edit
This is the outcome of my final major project. During the planning stage I had big ideas that I was unable to go through with as I was unable to do it during editing. When my character is going back in time I used a glitch effect consisting of three layers each with a (RGB) colour balance, I changed the scale and position of each layer in order to create the effect. During editing I found out the audio was not loud enough so I had to record it separately with a zoom, I didn't properly sync the audio and video so next time I film I will need to make sure that I have a microphone on set to capture the audio or If I need to record audio separately then I will need to make sure I Listen to the audio from the film then try and sync it with the audio that was recorded separately. We were outside for most of the recording so I used natural lighting. We didn't stay in two of the locations for very long, I only needed two shots in Brixton and Clapham so we weren't there for a long time unlike West Norwood. In the final production the characters are wearing casual clothing, the main character is wearing a black hoodie with denim jeans, the friend is wearing a black coat with a white t-shirt and denim jeans.
My initial idea to show that the character was going back in time was to have the character vibrate while a solar flare travels across the screen but it didn't look as good as I wanted it to so I settled for a glitch effect. These are examples of the effects I wanted to use.
1) Solar flare effect
2) Glitch effect
I got some transitional shots for the ending where my character does a monologue. In photoshop I made a blue overlay for the footage so it doesn't look gray and dull, I had also asked people if I could get a shot of them wasting time on their phone rather than getting to their destination.
This is the final outcome of my poster. I have the title in the middle with the slogan underneath it. The idea of my poster came from looper as they have both characters fading in opposite side of the poster, I wanted to create the same kind of effect but in a different way. The two blue shadows represent alternate time lines where the character has gone back in time so much the out comes have gotten worser and worser.The character is looking away from the camera to show that he is not going back to the past to change things anymore.
This is the feedback I got from my target audience. Overall it was positive feedback but there were two negatives the main one being sound. When I was filming I did not pay attention to sound, the wind and cars in the background were louder than the audio which meant I had to go into another room and record the audio, however, when editing I didn't properly sync the audio also at the end during the monologue, one person said the audio was not loud enough so I will need to take that into consideration next time as well. The other one was, during the beginning when the first actor is walking, I should have had the credits as I'm walking.
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