Shooting Diary

Day 4- Tuesday 18^th January.

Today we got the final parts to our chase sequence with ben the main character running through some alley ways we found around the local area. Today we stole Dan Norris away from the other media group to appear in our film. He wore a white mask like I did and we both appeared at random intervals throughout the film. We are never the main focus and so do not take and attention away from Ben (the main character). Yet we are still very noticeable if the audience is paying attention. This almost subliminal tactic should keep the audience’s attention throughout the film and keep them engrossed. Whilst filming I got on the roof of a garage to get the effect of CCTV footage watching Ben running to add a twist and some variety to the film. Jack will turn this footage into a black and white effect and then and a digital clock in the corner to make it really seem like a CCTV camera. After this we all had a short team talk to refresh ourselves of where we are and what still needs doing. After this we realised that there was a jump in the film and that we needed to film more footage of Ben being chased by my dog. Therefore we drove to mine and used my dog and my front gate. We set the tripod up in the road outside and then got the dog ready. However working with animals leaves nothing certain so to ensure that the dog pursued Ben we gave him a slice of ham that dog was very much interested in. The shot worked perfectly first time and filled the jump in our film sufficiently. Unfortunately after that scene was finished Dan had to be back in school and so we called it a rap and headed back to capture what we had filmed onto the computer. But after reviewing the tapes we noticed that we had accidently left the camera recording and managed to film a lovely 20 minutes of Dan’s shirt. Which meant it took longer to capture and then to edit the footage. Next week we aim to complete all of our filming by getting the final scenes with the clone and the Wild West style shoot out, and also any other little shots we need along the way.

Day 3- Tuesday 11^th January.

Today we spent almost all of our time focusing on the chance sequence, which is the main part of our music video. We went to an associate’s house which was free and were granted permission to use their garden. Whilst there we filmed Ben (the main character) appearing through a bush and then running around the house and out onto the street. Then we took around thirty minutes to film the important scene of Ben sending a text to his mate saying ‘Meet me in ten at the bridge’. He then walks round the corner to find his clone stood in the middle of the road staring directly at him. We then had to film the beginning of the chance scene which proved more difficult than we first thought because it required a great deal of concentration and patience as we had to remember when it was the clone or not, whether the glasses should be worn, whether the camera is in the exact same position. All at the same time as trying to get Ben to play two characters at the same time in the same shot, almost like in the Austin power’s movies where Mike Myers plays multiple characters in the film. However soon after finishing filming we realised we needed much more angles, close ups and cuts all of the exact scenes we just filmed, so this will have to be done either next week or the week after. We then went to they fly over to film our bridge scene where the main character is supposed to meet his mate, but runs past as the clone is chasing him. Yet no one else can see this ‘clone’. This scene proved more and more difficult to film as I had to play the part of the mate and turn to watch Ben run past, but then do it again but this time before Ben passed me as he was playing the clone which I am not able to see. This was tricky as the timing had to be just right or the whole scene wouldn’t work. Then we encountered another problem of pedestrians and cyclists wishing to use the bridge, proving ever more why a set is useful. We managed to take two cameras with us today so we were able to gather twice the footage in the same time and from different angles. Which proved very useful when it came to editing as we had a lot to chose from, enabling us to get the best out of what we got. Today was by far our most productive day of filming.

Day 2- 4^th January

 After our failed attempt on making the opening seen in our chosen location jack, Ben and I went back to re-film the footage we lost. Again we encountered many problems before we even started we had to return to school and pick up a tap. We made the location, character, costume and mise en scene, including the pool table to be kept the same to save any new complications arising. The only difference was that we included an extra actor/ character not originally in the script to make the opening flow more easily and show the audience that the party the night before did have others there. This resulted in me lying on the floor in a passed out pose with an empty bottle in my hand. Throughout our filming we tried to keep the continuity flowing as clean as possible this proved difficult because we had to film the same scenes over and over but from different angles. I had to remain extremely still in order to not ruin the continuity of the shot unless needed to. We decided to film two sides of the story shown through my character. A white mask appears, hopefully getting the audience more involved, this was all in hope to create a choppy effect when editing. We got this idea from “fight club” when Brad Pitt/ Tyler Derden appears and then disappears from the shot. On the receiving end of this technique we felt that this was a clever and almost freaky effect, the same effect we hope to create later in the film. 

We started off filming using a camera which chewed up the tapes. A quick change of camera meant that we could continue, however again only filming with one camera meant that we would have to change the camera angles and re-act the scenes over and over until we felt that we had enough to use and more, which lead to issues with the continuity as everything had to be exactly the same second time round.

We filmed exactly the same footage however this time we didn’t have my grandparents this time round to star in our film. The second day of filming was after a brainstorm and run trough of the script, all these changes effected what we filmed. The things that we changed were after the opening scene within the pool/ party venue. From there we filmed the first “clone” scene. This was again hard to achieve and unfortunately we weren’t successful when filming, breaking the 180 degree rule and also making us unable to film our clone.  This scene took place in my bathroom because of the shower (to make the psycho shower scene) and a mirror in which I was to be reflected in. Outside a window is a landing area which we used to show the character jumping from to escape.

Because we unfortunately were unsuccessful again with the filming of a scene we will re-record what we can and use previous footage which we can edit into our film. This is not a loss however we have not filmed what we wanted.  We hope to re-film this scene to how we envisioned it and begin to film the dog scene, running scenes and possibly the final scene in order to have more in editing. 

Day 1- 3^rd January

 Jack and Ben had an attempt on making the opening seen in our chosen location. We chose the costume, location and Mise en scene, including the pool table. Throughout our filming we tried to keep the continuity flowing as clean as possible this proved difficult because we had to film the same scenes over and over but from different angles, in hope to create a choppy effect when editing.

After setting up the scenery (scattering bottles, to create a previous drunken night illusion), cameras and actors, we were set to film. We have chosen to use a free hand approach when filming; we intend to do this as much as possible to create an effect that the audience is following the character and experiencing his episodes first hand.  We have inherited this idea from “Fear and Loathing from Las Vegas”, in this film the majority of the footage is with moving scenery, noting is still, stable or structured. This makes the audience and the characters seem unstable and the film edgy. We want to use this effect because we feel that this would be a good technique to involve the audience and make the enjoy it. It also fits in with the fact that the character is still recovering from a drug and alcohol fuelled party the night before.

Because of our creativity and improvisation we only had a rough guideline to what we were expecting to create, until I finally drew up a structured story board. With this we were able to play around with different use of shots. We felt that this was a good way to film because it meant that we got a lot of footage captured in a small space of time and with the weather slowly closing this was important to get as much as possible before the weather turned on us.  

We had filmed our first scene. Around 10 minutes of footage for 30 seconds worth of film. We felt that all of the footage could be used, and would look good with a hard cut from shot to shot. This is cleverly done in “Alfred Hitchcock’s psycho”, he uses different angle of the same action to create an edgy build up to the famous shower scene, some extremely subtle. 

The next scene we filmed was again spontaneously. We decided together that a running scene filmed from outside of a car would be a great way to film a chase scene. Films use tracks and from the sides of vehicles but because of our lack of equipment all we had was a car and a camera to film with.

We filmed a running scene but encountered a few problems along the way. This included the car moving the camera accidently jogging it and a few times making the car become in the shot.  Another problem was the pedestrians; a few times bystanders would suddenly appear in the film and look directly in the camera or get in my way whiles I was running.  This proved one of the most difficult scenes to crack however one clean run meant that we had a complete footage of which we could use and clips of good footage from other takes from which we could edit into the film.

They were at the location at the time and so we decided to see if we could use some effect that we researched and incorporate this into our storyline. We had a rush of creativity and came up with using a warp effect that could make my grandparents look evil. This effect is used in “” to scare the audience and hopefully this will be the same effect when audiences watch our film. We justified using an old couple to become devilish and demon like was to show  the audience that even kind innocent people are effected by our main charters trippy experiences, we expect to use this effect again later on in the film when a dog a kindly dog walker change into vicious, scary beings.

Unfortunately all of the footage captured on day one of filming was unable to be downloaded and put onto a computer. The 30+ minuets worth was useless and so we would have to film again using a different way of capturing our footage. The 30 minutes were the equivalent of 30 gigabits and so was pointless to download. We were disappointed with this however we decided to use our experiences and so on day two of filming we will be able to quickly and efficient capture all and more. 

Animatic

This is the link to our group’s animatic. This is a moving storyboard that we drew for our music video to give us an idea and outline of what we need to do when filming. I drew all of the pictures for the story board from idea’s that jack and ben would speak out, and from those words I would have to create an image to represent what they wanted to happen in the video, it was rather hit and miss for a while. This took longer than expected as we had a lot of idea’s and took time to decide upon which one would be best suited for our music video.  Once the story board was completed we took photos of each individual image and then uploaded them to the computer and them put them onto premier pro. Then Louis created the animatic, but as this is our final year of media at a level we decided to make it more interesting. We altered some of the pictures so they actually appear to move in the screen. Also Louis added the band pictures we took into the animatic at certain intervals in the song, for example when the word Piranha appears a band photo will appear for a couple of frames. This made the animatic more interesting and appealing, also looks more professional than just the images moving slowly to the music. The animatic only lasts for two thirds of the song as our storyboard was not long enough to last the whole 3 and a half minutes. So we cut to a black fade and then had some tittles come up and faded the song out to finish it off.

E-mail To The Prodigy

'We are a group of media students from a small town in the U.K.

We are writing to ask if we could use the track ‘Piranha’ for our media course.

The work is entirely for academic purposes and has no commercial value to us.

We will not be re-selling or making any profit out of our production, we kindly ask

you permission to use your track for our media portfolio.  Thank you. '

This is an email that we wrote up to send to The Prodigy asking permission to use their track for our course. We are cuurently awaiting a reply so we are going ahead with this track untill further notice.

Equipment and Technology

We used lots of technology in making our film. We used two DV cameras for filming the production although one was set to the ratio 4:3 instead of widescreen so we couldn’t really use this footage in our final film. We also used the homemade steady cam the media department has, which helped with keeping our moving shots and close to the action (including using a hockey stick and some gaffer tape, improvisation at its best). Jack learned how to use After Effects well for our special effects we would edit into the film and make everything work better.


Premier Pro: This is the program that we used to edit all of our footage that we caught and chosen track, we have had previous experience on Premier Pro editing a Romeo and Juliet trailer and a Preliminary exercise. Alaso we worked on Example's video for 'kickstart'. We created the opening of the video, which took hours of editing to get it just right. The software allows you to edit different audio and video on multiple tracks, which has proved extremely useful. It is laid out so that your imported files are on the left, the track are at the bottom and the video is on the top right however the only sound we would use is the sound track (piranha- prodigy) and a gun shot . This is a very easy system to use once you’ve had some practice. This 5 second worth is 1 lessons worth of special effects and editing involved.

Camera: The camera we used to film, obviously, the model was a Panasonic GS230 and was very easy to use and operate. However we did encounter a dodgy camera which didn’t capture any footage to a computer and a second camera which chewed the taps which we filmed on. This thing unfortunately kept on setting us back.

Equipment: As well as the camera we also used a lot of extra technical equipment such as a steady cam, tripod, and an additional camera. We used a hockey stick and gaffer tape which Ben would hold and run with so he was in focus and the back ground is moving. This effect is used in “Placebo-The perfect drug” perfect for our film. The steady cam came in handy when we needed to film action shots because whoever was filming could run alongside the action but the footage wouldn’t appear too shaky whist still being in shot. We tried to uses a second camera on site on the filming day to film different angles of the scene so instead of filming the scene twice. We also used a toy gun to imitate a real gun.   

Official Website

We created a website for our band to make it seem more professional and also enable the band to accessible to everyone around the world. We used a website called wix.com, it set up a template for use which we then could change and develop it as we pleased. with colours, images and extra tabs for links to other pages.

This image below is the main page, it shows three pictures of the band and the bands name in the top left. Below the name is 4 tabs which are Home, Discography, tour'n'Gallery and Comntact'n'comment.



This image shows the discograpghy area of our website. It shows the tracks on our CD and also gives background information on how the band got noticed and the band members themselves. Plus the audience have a chance to listen to a track of our album. Also the speakers move with the music, giving it a more professional feel.



This is a screen shot of the Tour'n'Gallery page, this contains information about when the and where the band will be touring. Also shows all the bands photo's so the audience can feel closer to the band. Keeping the audience up to date will help keep the ticket sales as high as possible maximising the bands profits making us huge rock stars :)



This is the last page of our website, it enables our fans to get in contact with the band and this makes them feel valued. Also it helps the band make decisions on where to tour next in relation to fan demands.
This website was relatively easy to use and we soon got the hang of it and managed to produce a convincing official website for our band. We looked at other similar bands websites to try and get a feel for what the norm for this style of music is, and then add our own unique twists to make it individual and original to us. We were advised to ignore the prodigy website as we are already using a prodigy song and need to keep as far away from copyrighting their merchandise as possible. So we there for we looked at the websites of The Qemists, Pendulum, Chase and Status, Example etc.

We the updated the website with new and recent images, and made our colour scheme fit with everything.

Below is the link to our website, please take a look :)



www.wix.com/Sharradine/Proper-one

Plot

Our plot takes on our ideas and researched media influences. I feel that the concept takes on all of our ideas, with story boarding and brainstorming we have all come up with a clever and interesting plot.

Scene 1- It starts out with our main Character (played by Ben) awaking from a night of heavy drinking, parting and drugs. Evidence of this is shown by the bottles and dirty setting, the mise en scene was very important to tell the audience about the character and what the film will include.  The character wakes up, confused and disorientated and unsure of the night before. Still dazed and confused he leaves the place he spent the night.

Scene 2- As he walks home he encounters random people on the street, who carry out their normal lives. One is a man walking his dog. Weird and off the wall moments occur throughout the film scaring and confusing the audience and the character. The dog acts normal when walking down the road, a hard cut reveals the dog as violent, barking and going crazy.

Scene 3- Becoming freaked out by what is happening to him he runs home and manages to recover slightly from the events and to wash himself from the night before. Still on edge he begins to question his own reflection. We use a sense of disharmony between him and his own refection by using a masking effect. The reflection doesn’t match the movement precisely and then becomes more noticeable as it goes on. We then see that the reflection is actually appeared behind the character and is out of the reflective world. This is again created by a masking effect one in which we have had a good practice at and hope will make the film. (A lot more editing is required when making this section of the film) because of the surprise of his own reflection/clone he pushes him out the way; the clone reacts to this and shoves him back. This goes back and forth throwing bathroom object when finally the clone slips on the wet floor and cracks his head open falling into the bath. We then see blood spiralling down the plug hole, copying the well-known scene from “Alfred Hitchcock’s- Psycho”.  Our scared and anxious character decides the best way to escape is to jump out of the secondary story window.

Scene 4- As he runs away his texts his friend. The text reads “Mate, I’m freaking out. I think it could be the stuff we had last night, I dunno but I need help!” a reply comes quickly reading “meet me on the corner”. We see that when he gets to the meeting place that his friend is again a clone. This begins a chase scene. He runs through towns and back alleys trying to escape the clone. The clone appears in random areas, making the whole experience seem trippier in the eyes of the character. Acting irrationally he breaks through a window of a home and then searches for a weapon.  Looking through draws, kitchens and searching local spaces he picks up a baseball bat, noticing a quick refection he swings the baseball bat. It crashes through a mirror with his own refection; he drops the bat and runs away from the area. He looks in a draw and finds a gun. Turing around he sees his clone in a door way. A stand-off and almost a western like shoot out occurs. As the character raises his gun pointing it at the clone the clone raises his fingers in the shape of a gun aiming it at the character.  A gunshot rings out in time with the music as it reaches its climax. A bloody scene sees the characters, both myself and my clone bleeding from the stomach from where they had been shot.  Both stumble around and fall backward at the same rate (like a mirror). We then cut between them falling and the falling image of me on the pool table which is also at the beginning of the film. The two falling images relate to each other. We got the idea for this scene from- the opening scene of “Trainspotting” when he gets hit with a ball in the head and also hit of heroine, we see a contrast of quick cutting shots of both scenes which make the two relate and look effective. We felt that the use of drugs and transfer of shots created a good look and clever use of editing. However  when our character falls we feel that if he is showing something which really links the two scenes together would be an even better effect rounding off the story. For example when he falls on the pool table he would be showing signs of still being in a drugged out state or still holds the gun in one hand or has a blood stained shirt. I feel that holding a gun would combine the two shots (and a hard cut of 2 frames worth of the character wearing a freaky white mask appearing all over the film) subtly and effectively and clearly rounding off the film. 

Target Audience

Our target audience for this track is young adults aged 16-25 years of age. Who are the most influential and outgoing people. They are already engorged in music and make up 90% of the people at gigs and festivals. So therefore by targeting this age group we can maximise our publicity and sales of our albums.

Our product is similar to many products made by other bands such as 'Chase & Status', 'Pendulum', 'Enter Shikari' and 'Hadouken'. They all have a similar target audience, with similar interests which consists mostly of white boys in their late teens from middle class backgrounds. Meaning that they have a relatively average rate of income and disposable income to spend on gigs and CD's and downloads. This is the audience we would be aiming to please if we released the album. 

We researched the average statistics for the age of people within the UK to get a better understanding of how large the age range we are targeting was. The graph shows that our target audience rages from about 300,000 to about 425,000, meaning that we have a large potential market to attract.

How Will Reach Our Target Audience

To reach our target audience we will use a variet of media methods such as Internet advertising, TV promotion an posters at gigs and festivals and possibly attempting to get our album onto itunes.

We would use websites such as facebook and myspace as they have millions of members and a large number of the people that use these websites fit into our target range. Also placing ads on websites such as kerrang, as shown below.

Then we will attempt to get our video on music channels such as MTV base, Kerrang, NME, Starz TV and 4 music to try and maximise our track. Plus these channels are regularly viewed by our target range and can be shown to thousands of people at a time. These channels are typically viewed by our target market, they play them at parties and when at home with mates so this is why we chose these channels.

Also we would produce a poster to post round festivals and gigs and any other venues such as the Guildhall and The B.I.C. Here are some examples:

Also to keep up to date with the change in technology we would try and get our tracks on iTunes as it has become a major site for people to get there music on a global scale. To do this we have to go through sights such as this one below:

This site enables anyone to upload their music to a wide variety of download sites, including the big names such as iTunes and Amazon. To do this we would have to pay a one off fee and then we can upload our album and get to keep all the rights and profits made from sales. This would increase awareness of our track to a great extent.

Also we conducted a small survey of our year group to try and establish where they got their music from To help us chose how to reach our audience. A massive 72% said they got their music from download sights such as iTunes and Amazon, 18% said they bought Cd's and 10% illegally downloaded their music. From this information we were able to establish that the majority use download sites, so this is a vital way to distribute our track. Also the research is based on our age range which is also within the target range so it shows this would be a very affective method to reach our audience.  

Similar Bands Album Covers

This is the album cover from chase and status, more than a lot. Black backgrounds with florescent colours are a great way of grabbing the attention of the audience and are commonly used amongst drum and bass artists. Simple text with a slight graffiti feel to it is also very effective as it is easy to read, but still interesting and eye catching.

This album cover from Spor, soyl samples, uses the same sort of colour pattern, with a dark surrounding background with florescent eye catching image in the centre.  The pill that can be seen is a common feature among this band. Most bands usually have a logo or style that they generally follow throughout their album art.

Pendulum’s album cover for in silico uses the same colour pattern which influenced us into choosing the colours we selected for our logo and album cover.  Bright colours on a dark background, with the band name and album name above the image.

After carefully analysing all of these and many other influential bands with in the drum and bass genre, we carefully selected factors from each album art work and developed them and manipulated them to suit our requirements.  We followed the same colour scheme using dark backgrounds with florescent and eye catching colours scattered about in an almost graffiti style manner. But as we are using a prodigy song, we tried to stay as far away as possible as not to look like we were simply copying the prodigy’s style.