The End of The filming process

We have all our footage and it's the end of filming!

And I Feel like this .... 

Here's a short video summarising the negatives of the Can you keep a secret filming experience.

The Next Stage Editing ->

Day 2: Filming is finally done! (Woop Woop!)

The Filming Process Has Finally Come To An End....
But don't worry! I can ensure you that these are tears of happiness! ='D

Though it was a VERY long process and it did take a ridiculous amount of time, I believe it is safe to say that Group 11 and I have enjoyed our experience! As a group we have come to a lot of disagreements but that's only because we have strong passions of our projects and we only seeked to do our absolute best. =D

ANYWAY...
The last two days of filming went amazingly well (partly because we were able to get everything done, but whatever x3).
Though it did come with some set backs such as:

• The room we booked for 3 HOURS was GIVEN away to a smug.... Person.
• Yesterday, during our filming in the woods, we lost some natural light (but thank God we had our top light!)
• Today, because of our little booking incident, we had to use our filming time to find ANOTHER room in the college; there was a risk of not being able to get all the right shots.
• We had to travel through WET STICKY MUD and our shoes pretty much got messed up (sigh).

But besides from all of that... Filming ended in a positive way as... WE DID IT!! YAAAAYYYY!!! ='D

CYKAS: FILMING DAY 2

The forth day of filming

On the second day of filming we got kicked out of the room we had booked due a double booking. we was unable to finish filming our interview scene so had  to rebook the room for the following week making sure the location was kept the exact same for mise-en-scene. When we turned up we was stunned to find our room was reassigned due to being a few minutes late. It looked like our luck had run out. After maniacally running around the college we then came across a empty classroom we was able to work with (not like we had any choice).  The room had the required desk and white walls we got to work straight away as we only had the room for 1 hour to film, which isn't alot of time to do mid shot's, close ups, cutaways and mid-close-ups, whilst still remembering head space.

Here is some footage from the forth day of Filming. 

There was a problem with the video please end at 1:35

Can you keep a secret day three

Today was a PRODUCTIVE day, thank god I got to use that word, with the way the film opening has been going so far I never thought I'd see the day.  Today we filmed on LOCATION  with ALL of the group members.  I was appointed Camera woman as all of the other girls had to act in the scene. being the camera woman gave me the FREEDOM and flexibility to shoot as many shots as I wanted from various positions and using various angles. There was also alot of pressure on me as I had to remember about HEAD SPACE , which I totally forgot about in the forest, but luckily, somehow, it still turned out okay.

 The location  was huge and got dark very quickly, the forest  was really MUDDY and very slippery,  and should  have been put in the risk assessment,  as we could have fallen holding the steady cam and been hurt or could have damaged the equipment, or the actors costumes all of which would could have delayed  filming.  Epping forest was the perfect location the lakes, bushes and trees were great for the background scenery.  

The most enjoyable part of the journey was the Cold dark time consuming journey home. 

Vlog 3

So how filming went today...

As you've seen in our previous post, we've finally started filming! Though it did take us some time to start up (we had to get ALL the equipment, find a room, make sure we were wearing all the right costume, making some last minute arrangements e.g. book a room in our college's library etc). BUT we did something! We managed to film most of Kadey's (played by Lauren) and Georgina (played by me!) parts of their interviews. We plan on shooting all the rest on Thursday afternoon (15:05 - 18:00). In addition, start editing as soon as possible as our rough cut is expected to be shown on Tuesday 4th March 2014.
Wish  us good luck!

Day 1: We FINALLY Began Filming!

The second part to the "Can You Keep A Secret?" opening.

Why we're doing this...
Unfortunately, during the half term my group and I weren't able to access all the footage we need for our teen opening. But don't worry, we've worked something out as we'll continue to do some filming over the weekend (not that we have a choice or anything...) . In addition, we thought that we should get some more shots in and do a second part to our film opening. The scene involves the three teenagers being interviewed about the incident that possible occurred in the woods and what they found. 

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**NOTICE** I know the storyboard is a little short but I can promise you there's a valid reason for this: WE MIGHT NOT USE THIS PART. We just want to keep our options open so when the editing processes comes we'll have a decent amount of footage. 

Can you keep a secret, day one evaluation

Over the holidays we attempted some filming however, as you've seen in my recent BLOG that didn't go so well. So I decided to write up a quick evaluation on the things that went wrong and some improvements for future purposes. 

Time management 
Problem - On the first day of filming half of our group were late so we didn't get any filming done.
Resolution - Planning -  you should always make sure you have planned the journey thoroughly, looking at the best travel times and routes whilst still leaving extra time in case of delays and emergency. 
Communication 
Problem - The Group is finding it really hard to find days where everybody is available to film because someone has to work, has deadlines or finishes college too late. 
Resolution- to resolve this problem all the group members should work on the production schedule together in advance to identify all the available dates and block out the dates we have decided on in our own diaries. Which minimises stress and everyone rushing at the last minute.
Plan B 
Problem - The  location the group decided on was too far away for many of the members to travel to especially if we needed to film on short notice . 
Resolution -  During the planning stage we should factor in travel, problems with equipment and absence of actors due to illness etc.  The group should always have a second option/back-up plan.

  

Can you Keep a secrete second day of filming

The second day of filming was the interview scene , we had planned to film at college but had not decided on a specific location.  We searched high and low for an empty classroom with white walls and a desk. We finally found a suitable room in the library which we were able to book for 30 minutes. Filming went smoothly, we got a variety of shots but only had enough time to film two characters in the allotted time, as the room had been booked after us. After we got kicked out of the room we were panicking and didn't now what to do,  after composing ourselves we booked a day to film the last few shots the following week.

Vlog 2 

Communication is KEY!

Stress... Stress... and MORE STRESS!!!

Unfortunately, our production of "Can You Keep A Secret?" has suffered a numerous amount of delays as we've now used up three of our dates and filmed absolute squat all ( -___-). Yesterday, Maya and I had to travel a long way as we tried to reach our location but the roads were closed for 4 HOURS which then meant we didn't have time to get any filming done at all (but we were able to enjoy a lovely bus ride). The previous two days, no filming could be done also simply because of there was no time (on Friday) and having to perform other tasks (during the weekend).

However(!), some members of the groups were not able to inform everybody when they were free, despite stating they would be, leaving others to face the consequences. BUT HAVE NO FEAR as today we WILL get all of the shots done no matter what (I'll stay out there all night if I really have to)! But during this stressful time, Maya and I have learnt that nothing won't work if we don't COMMUNICATE and follow our plans. In the (real) film world we know such behaviours wouldn't be acceptable. 

May we all learn from our mistakes. 

Disaster strikes again.

Filming day 2!

I know what your thinking! I'm thinking the same thing too! Lemme start from the beginning though. Esther and Maya arrived at location later again due to travel which meant we started filming late. When we got to location it looked perfect though. It was just beginning to get dark. We entered the forest only to realise that it had not dried from the rain the previous night! AHH. With myself in front, i was required to lead them to where we were shooting, while also dodging the mud so as not to get my costume dirty. The path was a complete NO GO so this meant we were required to walk on the grassy patches. Finally we got to the set of our location and hey guess what? IT STARTED RAINING! yep. That happened, and not only that but during all of this it had gotten to dark to film. On the camera the screen looked pitch black. After everything all we managed to get was a creepy shot of the sky and the tree's on camera. 10 seconds worth of footage! :( We are going to consult as a group and then decide when we are going to try filming again. Probably some time next week after college. I'll keep you updated. 

-Lauren

Our filming disappointment

So we were supposed to film today but disaster struck! Maya and Esther had trouble travelling to our filming location so we ended up getting no filming done today! This sets us back MAJORLY because we were hoping to get the majority of our filming done today. Therefore this means we are required to get ALL our filming done tomorrow! So cross your fingers for us! It also got really dark at around 5-5.30pm today meaning that it was just too dark to film. All we can do now is make sure nothing goes wrong tomorrow!

Can you keep a secret - Filming day one

The first day of filming didn't go so well because we didn't actually  film anything at all because two  members of our group who were also part of the cast were absent due to traffic disruption so we were unable to film anything. 

Instead of wasting the whole day  Whilst waiting for the other girls Lauren I  did a camera test, we tried filming outside but it was to dark, we tried putting a light on top of the camera and looking at the image, but after Looking at the footage we didn't like how the light looked and decided that if we wanted to avoid using the light in our film opening  we would have to shoot between the time frames off 3 and 5.30 pm.  The delay in filming due to the travel disruption  also made me think about time management and the importance of the planning stage and ways we could resolve any disruptions like we experienced on the first day. 

Day 1 Vlog

Storyline of our opening

We are going to have the company idents appearing first: this is the production and distribution companies (fox atomic and studio canal). These will be on a blank screen accompanied by a voiceover (script in earlier blog post). The last line of the voiceover is "Can You Keep A Secret?" and at the same time as this the film title will appear. It will then fade into our characters being interrogated by a detective and with each of their answers to the questions, there will be a flashback to the forest showing what they were really doing. This will present a contrast between what they are saying and what will be scene in the flashback clicks, illustrating to the audience that the girls are lying. 

DUN DUN DUN.

Lighting for Can You Keep A Secret

Research - A Little Something for Inspiration...

On YouTube happened to come across other film openings from AS Media students and we could see all the different effects and camera techniques, as well as music and sound effects. We thought these would be a great way to gather ideas for our own film and to help us in the making. 

Here are the videos that have inspired us and shown us just how brilliant we can make the film! 

We can see that this project is a film opening for an Action film. The whole idea and tension of just this short clip makes the audience want to watch the rest of the film. Pretty amazing, looks like a real Blockbusters movie!
This group gained full marks for this masterpiece, no surprise there!

This film opening is for a Thriller/Horror film and is ideal for us to get ideas from as it took place in a location where there is a sense of death. Our film also involves that feel of 'murder' or 'death' as our opening scene involves 3 girls burying "something"... 
There is obviously NO violence and there will be none in our own film opening.

1000 BLOG VIEW !!!

1000 PAGE VIEWS

Hey guys, we just wanted to thank you for all the awesome support you've given us these pass three months and we wanted to let you to know it means the world to us, so here is a blogpost to say thank you.

Production Scheduel- EXTRA DATES!

After our pitch, we've discovered that we have extra dates (between the 24th February to 2nd March) so we've decided that we're going to either do some more filimg (if needed to) OR go straight into editing.

The rest of our teen film opening script!

Me and Danniella thought more about our film opening and the timeline of events, we decided that something was missing so we thought about incorporating a voice over after the company indent during the running of the titles.This way it would keep the viewers entertained whilst still giving them more information about the film.

VOICEOVER

It all happened at once. Hours. Everything changed within hours. One hundred and thirty seven minutes to be precise. Thats all it took for my world to come crashing down. It changed into a dream, a nightmare...the unthinkable. We see stuff like this on TV all the time but i never expected this to become reality. We tried to stop it. I tried to stop it but it was out of my hands. And it all started with one question...

*whispering* Can you keep a secret?

Tips and Tricks for framing

So there were a few tips and tricks for framing when filming, so I thought i would share them with you!

• We need to think about the shot before we film and make sure there is nothing in the background that is not supposed to be there! (Do not want to be surprised by a tripod when editing.)
• Shooting the same scene repeatedly but using different angles will keep it interesting and give us more to work with during editing.
• Minimising the amount of movement by using a tripod will make the film look better (unless it's intentional)
• Shooting cutaways will provide useful in editing.
• Pan and Tilt in ONE direction only.
• Do not zoom.
• Make sure shots are sharp and in focus (you want to be able to use the shots you want in editing, not not be able to use them because they aren't in focus.)
• Since we'll be shooting on different days continuity is EXTREMELY important. Make sure all costume and scenery is the same.
• Remember the thirds rule. 
• Use close up's as they convey emotion the best.
• No space above the head ever.

FOLLOW ALL OF THIS AND WE'LL BE GOOD TO GO!

The Official Storyboard for "Can You Keep A Secret?"

The following is a detailed 12-cells storyboard for our film opening. It contains all the CORRECT and ONLY camera shots we will be using while filming which include: wide shots, low angles, match cuts etc.  

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Handy hints on framing before filming

Handy Hints On Framing 

1) There should never be any head space 
2) Actors should walk in and out of frame , which will help with editing 
3) Vary your shots
4) Pan slowly in one direction
5) Don't zoom move camera forwards and backward manually 
6)Continuity is vital
7)Focus on your subjects 
8)Mirror the actors POV
9) Remember 'The third rule' (The thirds rule is a grid you use to make sure your filming is in the centre.Most of the time you can imagine the grid is there while recording to ensure the actors are positioned accurately.)

The Thirds Rule 

10)Close ups are essential 
11)Keep camera steady
12)Use the tracking shots to create movement 
13) Shoot plenty of cutaways
14) Match cuts make all the difference.

Here are some  examples of some of these handy hints on framing in this
short film.

Our 'Can You Keep A Secret?' Poster!

Maya: 
The software I used to create this poster was Photoshop. All I had done was import the picture Lauren took of the forest our film will take place in, edited to make the picture look dark and gloomy (it's a horror after all!)  and then added some text - the title, and a little slogan 'It's Your Word Against Mine...' to create some tension and for the audience to get thinking.

Pich Feedback and changes.

We got positive reviews on our pitch, everybody liked how developed the characters was and how detailed our planning is However, we also got negative reviews. The class said that our story board wasn't detailed enough and neither was our production schedule so we decided to improve the quality of both . 

First Story board

Edited Story Board.

First production schedule 

The dates we plan on filming are:

- Friday 14th February

- Saturday 15th February

- Monday 17th February

- Wednesday 19th February 

Edited production schedule 

Can you keep a secrete - Possible Camera shots

CAMERA SHOTS

 Camera positioned on floor filming Actors feet.

Cut away to the props that are scattered around the forest.

Close up on the girls facial expressions around the circle when they are burying. 180 degree rule

Camera filming the girls from behind the trees.

Low angle shot, showing girls looking down at what they buried.

Match cut of Jasmine picking up the shovel and then the shovel being put in the ground. 

Cut away showing Kadey's hand twitching.

Long shot of the girls huddled and then Kadey turning around - Midshot of Kadey staring at something - close up and then POV shot, showing some bushes. 

Mid close up of each girl turning around scared. 

Over the shoulder shot of 'somebody' watching them.

The script for our opening!

I have written the script for our opening! 

Here it is...

DETECTIVE: Kadey Brash, Georgia Oakley, Jasmine Denford. What were you doing last Friday night?

KADEY: Nothing! I was…er at Jasmines house.

GINA: I was at Jasmines house.

JASMINE: We were hanging out at my house.

DETECTIVE: Did you leave the house?

KADEY: Um…no.

GINA: No.

JASMINE: Nope.

DETECTIVE: Are you sure because we have reason to believe otherwise. You left the house didn’t you?

KADEY: Only briefly!

GINA: For a moment.

JASMINE: For like five seconds.

DETECTIVE: Why?

KADEY: Fresh air?

GINA: Fresh air.

JASMINE: Fresh air.

DETECTIVE: You went into the forest didn’t you?

KADEY: No.

GINA: No.

JASMINE: No.

ALL: I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Feedback to our Pitch

The feedback was mostly positive (yayy!) and our classmates were able to provide us awesome comments .

What we need to improve on:

• We need to improve our storyboard a little bit 
• As well as our production schedule (as there are a few missing dates)

Our Pitch and Feedback!

Today we pitched our film opening idea. Our presentation was on prezi; which can be seen in an earlier post. This was a new way to present for us and it went well because it made the presentation look good and made more interesting. In our feedback we were compliemented on our use of prezi, which can be seen in a video uploaded on our blog. I think the pitch went well also because we had a mixture of pictures, animation, text, video and sound to keep our audience interested and get across information, without being boring. We all knew what we were doing for our presentation which made our pitch come together nicely.

Overall i am very happy with how our pitch turned out and the only thing we needed to do to improve on was adding the exact shot types we would use in our opening and making our production schedule more precise!

PRODUCTION SCHEDULE

Blog review!

I decided that it was about time that i reviewed how i think our blog is going and what can be done to improve.
 I think i need to improve on the frequency of posts and improve the presentation by using more interesting platforms to blog. For example using video to create blog posts for better visuals and voice recordings in stead of just reading the posts. I think the quality of the blog posts is going well and i just want to post more often about anything that may be relevant to the teen film genre and making our film opening! I am currently working on a video log of our filming which will be posted in due course showing behind the scenes footage, the making of, bloopers and will discuss any issues or problems we encounter.
I am also going to add more photos so the posts are easier to engage with!

Production Schedule

The dates we plan on filming are:

- Friday 14th February

- Saturday 15th February

- Monday 17th February

- Wednesday 19th February 

Sound - Can you keep a secrete?

Before jumping into searching for sound for the film opening, I decided to do some initial research. I looked at the sound in films with a similar genre to our film, which we decribe as Horror/Psychological Thriller.

Examples:

 

After I got an idea of the type of sound I was looking for, I used Creative Commons to find websites that offered me copyright free music. I used Sound Cloud and Jamendo to find the soundtrack I wanted to use in my film opening. I typed in key words such as:
- Scary
- Horror
- Evil
- Footsteps
- Haunted
- Creaky
... into the search engine to find the soundtrack I wanted. The search was much harder than I thought it would have been, as I kept on finding Hip Hop music, which isn't a genre popularly used in Horror films.

After 5 hours of searching I finally found two decent soundtracks that I was able to use in my film opening. You can see the sounds on the slides in the presentation.

Our PITCH: Can You Keep A Secret?

Like What I Did With The Blog....

As you've seen in my previous blog post (The Blog Review) I noted down that I needed to improve my blog my giving it a little more style... So I did! I have to say that I am pretty much happy with it, I mean look at it! It looks awesome! I obviously picked the theme that showed off who we are as we're all bright people so we needed a bright theme (duh!). Anyway, I hope you like our new blog style as much as we do! 

Blog Review!

Okay so my posts have been looked under a microscope....

... And the outcome of this has been all awesome! I've just been told that my posts are all up to date! Because of this I'm currently sitting on a B (yay!) and 2 marks away from getting an A (ohhh so close!) but I know I can get there. Just got to keep working hard....

What I need to get to improve my grade:

• To make the blog look a little more... Happier. Right now it's so plain and boring and it doesn't show off our personalities AT ALL
• To make a post of all the skills I've learnt during this project (an evaluation basically)
• Keep posting AWESOME posts! 

Lets hope I get to that grade soon... ^^ 

The Opening Scene Storyboard…

The following is a storyboard of our opening scene...

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PROPS and other MISE-EN-SCENE

Can You Keep A Secret? 

Props

We will use very simple props in our film as it will take place in a forest. For example we will have a spade and a mobile phone. Also, we will have typical teenage things like an empty bottle of an alcoholic drink, school/reading books and headphones. 

Target Audience for 'Can You Keep A Secret?'

Target Audience

Our target audience for the film are teenagers and young adults. The genre is Horror, therefore it is appealing to this age group. Also, the storyline and plot is interesting and it involves teenagers aged about 16-17 in the forest, which gives that kind of adrenaline and tension of the film. 

The film will also be appealing to an audience of teenagers because the young people in the film all have different personalities and styles which young people today can connect to and relate with. The costumes include girly outfits, edgy clothing and trendy clothes that teenagers like to wear, or would love to have in their wardrobe. 

The props used will also contribute to attracting teenagers because they include headphones, mobile phones and a bottle of an alcoholic drink. In addition, the film will show school books or reading books that teenagers tend to read or study, adding to the detail of targeting the desired age group. 

Risk assessment!

So it's inevitable that when filming something will go wrong...

But we plan to minimise the risks of something going wrong as much as we can! We will do so by making sure that when filming on location i.e. in the forest, we do it at a reasonable hour and stay on the path so as not to get lost. We will make sure the camera has full battery (or bring a spare one!) so as not to die on us in the middle of filming in the middle of the forest (that would be a nightmare). We plan to set each person in our group a job. 

i.e. camerawoman- has to make sure camera is in focus (Had a few disasters with this in the past!) and that we can get the best possible shots for the scene.

Prop manager- takes care of all the props. Make sure we have all the props when arriving and leaving locations and is just basically in charge of the props!

We will each be given an individual task so we can get the most out of filming.

When filming in busy public places the set camerawoman will be in charge of the camera and what happens to it. This way there are no complications and we can get through filming A LOT quicker!

On set is shall be a 

RISK FREE ZONE!

Planned location and location shots

We planned to film out teen film opening in a forest near where i live. Our teen film is going to be a thriller and therefore the forest provides the perfect place for us to have an eerie, intense setting and atmosphere. We decided that in the opening of our film we were going to show someone burying something and therefore we needed a location that wouldn't be busy with people walking around and that would be dark and quiet. Here is a photo of the forest we will be filming in. There is a limited amount of people walking through this path in the forest, while there are also houses nearby meaning we will be able to keep the equipment safe. I have filmed in this location previously with no troubles.

Since it is a teen film opening we also thought that in our opening we could rewind in time and show what happened before this person was burying something in the forest. To attract a teen audience i thought it would be  a good idea to use a location teens could associate with. Therefore to get a few shots of a shopping centre or somewhere like oxford street would be a good idea when rewinding back, to interest our teen audience. For example we are going to use shots of well known stores such as Topshop.

What movie company will produce our film...

As our movie genre is psychological-horror, I thought it would be best to look at those type of movies and the movie company that produced them to come to my conclusion of what movie company is more likely to produce our film. 

The five horror movies I looked at:

1)Jennifer's Body  

( This film was produced by Fox Atomic and Dune Entertainment )

2) Prom Night 

( This movie was produced by Alliance Film, Newmarket Films and Original Films)

3) Scream 

(This was produced by Dimension Films and Woods Entertainment )

4) Final Destination 

(This movie was produced by New Line Cinema, Zide-Perry Production and Hard Eight Pictures )

5) Donnie Darko

(This film was produced by Pandora Cinema, Flower Films (II), Adam Fields Production and Gaylord Films)  

CONCLUSION: 

• Looking at the different film companies, one could say that they're very well known companies. I believe that the reason for this is because horror/psychological films popular with the general audience in the film world.  
• Of course this comes with some advantages as it would probably be a big budget film, being able to have the best actors/actresses, directors etc and of course facing a possibility of being a mainstream one. 
• The film production I've decided to go with is Fox Atomic simply produces films like ours but also being in the FOX family, it would also mean that our film will get some recognition and more likely to be seen within the public eye. 

Can you Keep a secrete - Casting ,Characters & Costume.

Jasmine 

Jasmine is a COOL Chic.
Her friends sometimes take advantage of her CALM personality  she is very laid back and positive. Jasmine Loves technology and is always creating content, she dreams of becoming a film director however, her parents want her to pursue a more academic route, which brings out the rebellious side in her.
Jasmine's personal style is more fashion over function,  she opts for comfortable clothing such as jumpers and jeans, she loves combat boots and basically just throws on anything available to wear.

KADEY
Kadey is a fashionable NERD. 
She is the brains of the group and has an interest in ancient cultural artefacts, she is very polite and is always there if you need a shoulder to lean on however,  Kadey has a mean side and can be very argumentative  demonstrating her true ARIES traits .

Kadey would wear something indie and chic, she loves ankle boots and fedoras and is inspired by celebrities with a bohemian style, such as Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez. 

Georgina 

Georgina is the REBEL of the group.

She is a very confident character and dominates the group with an overwhelming pushy personality. She gets a thrill out of partying and ends up in trouble which always involves getting wasted  not to mention delirious. Georgina always convinces the girl's to be risky and 'try new thing's' , but has she gone TOO FAR this time ?

Georgina would wear something Urban and Casual, she loves to wear graphic t-shirts and beanies. Her Costume is influence by Hip hop music and modern celebrities such as, Rihanna, Rita Ora and    Kylie Jenner. 

Casting 
Ester - Georgia 
Maya- Jasmine 
Lauren - Kadey