GRAVITATIONAL STUDIOS -How I'm feeling so far ,

GRAVITATIONAL STUDIOS - lesson update in 60 seconds

Main things from this are :
- Editing at Adams house on wednesday
- Filming Monday period 1 , need to set up before hand
-intro was better slow than fast pace and will have credits on it.

GRAVITATIONAL STUDIOS -Hidden logo

when Making the logo I used a program called live type , the apple software allowed me to a simple yet professional looking title. Above you see to the right side a tool bar that allows you to pick a font and edit it (Its really that simple) it gave us the option of animating the text as shown bellow



However we though that to animate it would be a bit much when we already have an animated logo , it would be easy and better fitting if we just kept it simple just like the other titles we looked at in the power point I uploaded.




When I got a the font I wanted I exported it to the desktop. Although it does not have a black background, when put in to the film it should have one but we will only put it in when we have finished editing the film footage

GRAVITATIONAL STUDIOS -Plan for Mondays lesson

Fr Monday we will have to accomplish quite a lot of things to enable us to keep up with the finial deadline. The main thing we need to start is editing and although we have not shot all the footage we can still edit a good 2/3 of the film the things we can begin editing are:


-The opening animation
-The Opening Title (We must decide which title to use and font )
-The fast paced blur of flash back images with titles on them
-The flash back scenes


Also we must start recording the voice over and the heart beat we intend to put over the fast flash back.

GRAVITATIONAL STUDIOS - Looking at other logo Animations

When I present the team members with out animation I had to show them the other animation to prove the one I had picked was the best and also to see what they though of the other and how our ideas on what logo we should have differ.




The first one we looked at was the cinematic intro. Although it was as it say "cinematic" it was to flashy , there was to much happening for the audience to focus or for us to get the dramatic effect we desire with the hole thing. Therefore we ruled this one out.





Similar to the last intro there was to much going on. Not only that but it does not seem like an intro to a film more like the opening to the news which is not at all what we want. If we were to use this intro it would give of the wrong feel to the move ; it would seem more up beat which is not what we want.




This opening was way to metallic -we had decided that gravitation was more earth than metallic however the opening I chose in not that earth but it is professionally enough and simple enough to justify.Also like the others there was to much going on.







This opening to this one was to bright and sunny , it gave the complete wrong feel to the movie.


















This was the opening I used to to create the logo. we all agreed this is the best on of the choices there, this was because it it was simple and very professional and when contrasted with the fast pacing next scene it will make the over all project more powerful.

GRAVITATIONAL STUDIOS - Problems with location 2

As you will have already seen this is the location we want to shoot in . Although it is easy access and reliable I have some concerns about it , in terms of how we will properly use the space and still keep our modern take of gritty film noir mise en scene.





One of my concerns was the use of space. In order to make sure we have enough space to use the techniques we have learned e.g the 180 degree rule we must properly plan where things will be placed. The picture above illustrates one way in which we may place the table ; if we did it this way each person would be either to the let and right of this picture meaning that our camera shots would not show the door nor anything else that might obscure attention away from the actors although the room is bleak any way. This placement may change when we get to the space as we may decide that is not the best way to do things however for now this stands as we can use up
our time more efficiently instead of wasting it moving things around.




Another massive concern was the use of lighting, the lighting in the room is quite bright as you can see and this is not held by that fact that the room is a bright reflecting colour (which mean light is brighter as it ray bounce of the paint more and are not absorbed). also circled on the picture is quite a large amount of natural lighting coming through that cannot be blocked , as a large amount of light coming from the long office lighting at the top of the room.The reason this is a problem is because the more lighting we have the less the scene fits the film noir feel we are going for with the interrogation. However there is a way we can combat this and use the natural lighting to our advantage






If we place the camera to shoot from behind 9 (as planned) but at a lower angle we will make is face darker just like in the movie review I did a few weeks ago. I cannot be sure this will work without trying first so I will try and take some photos of the use of lighting before shooting properly.
Also to make sure the light is not over powering we will have to film when it get darker which shouldn't be a problem as it is the winter and it gets darker sooner.

GRAVITATIONAL STUDIOS - Replanning

I have just had a text and facebook message and e-mail from my school all telling me the same thing ! school will we be closed for wednesday due to strikes, what this means is that we will not be able to record and will have to think of a new day in which we I'll record and what we can do to make up for the time lost.

GRAVITATIONAL STUDIOS - Conformation of main actor

Yesterday we secured our main actor to play the part of Detective court. He is a teacher at Astley cooper school who used to be a professional actor, this is extraordinarily lucky as we can get to him easily and record at a time which is not incontinent for all of us- as he is based in the school we are therefore getting to him is not long and working around him is simple.not to mention the fact that he will give a great performance and will add appropriate extras to the character that will just improve the over all quality of story and moreover the video.

We spoke to him briefly about what time would be best for him to record- we hoped to do it on Monday on our media lessons however he was not free at that time so we suggested that we record on wednesday after school to which he replied he will most likely be free. therefore our plan next week will need to incorporate getting prepared for recording on wednesday. we talked about the things we would need to be ready for wednesday and came up with a list of things:


-Get props ready
- glasses of water
- Tv/Laptop to play phone footage from

-Get costume ready. we talked about what costume we want 9 to wear, it could either be the same as he was wearing in the footage shot before hand or something new. The problem with picking something new is that it has to give of the same feeling the previous costume does, and although you wont see a lot of the costume it will be an important part of the subtext of the video to which will greatly effect how the scene is acted out.so we have decided on a compromise between the two, we will use a very similar costume but subtly change things e.g the covering of the face (we will not need to cover his face as you will never see it front he front only from the back).
We expect that court will wear the suit and tie we planned in the power point unloaded a few weeks ago.


we expect to e-mail Mr Elen to send our expectations of the shoot and what we plan to do.

GRAVITATIONAL STUDIOS - Possible new logo and animation

GRAVITATIONAL STUDIOS - Possible new logo and animation

Whilst doing research into Logos and titles I came across some websites that help to make animations for logos so I gave it a go , and think I came up with something really good here is what I have so far:








I used http://www.flixpress.com. later on I will go on to talk about how i created it.
If we are to use this instead of the music I put behind it we would most likely use the start to the speech made by nine or any the music we intend to use.

Captains blog -Will not be in next lesson

I will not be in on Monday but I have sent an e-mail to my team members to insure they get as much work done as possible without me:






I used Facebook as it is the easiest way to contact people and as a media student I should be making use of new technologies just as businesses do .

GRAVITATIONAL STUDIOS - Film Titles

Gravitational studios film titles analysis

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GRAVITATIONAL STUDIOS - Grading

on the wednesday of week six I got my grading criteria and my grade for the work I have bloged thus far. I was given a c over all which is 12 out of 20. I was told that the best aspect of my media is my time management to I intend to uphold this if not improve it however I was given points in which I need to improve these where :

-To be more productive in lesson time- I can do this by coming to school with a plan for thing I intend to achieve that lesson and organise it so it allows time for blogging things we need to do .

-Document all elements of the production regularly using a variety of methods - I believe I can achieve this though further use of my android app however although using this app would increase blogs it would limit the way in which I blog as it would all be writing. Another problem is that I don't yet know how to use a mac computer so in terms of documenting my progress with it I am currently incapable and seeing as I don't have regular access to it ,it will take me longer to get used to it.


A task I will set my self is to discover news ways in which I can relate my progress to my blog readers/moderators.

GRAVITATIONAL STUDIOS - week 6

In the last lesson we were not able to review the footage recorded on Tuesday however we have planned to for Monday.Meanwhile we came up with an action plan of things to do between the last lesson and the lesson we will have on Monday. Not only that but in that lesson we looked at a new location for filming and a new actor.

we started to talk about sound and font/titles just as I had planned. looking at some of the reviews of intros to video gave us some ground to talk about, however it was not so much so that we came up with a definitive answer. so we decided we must look at more intros to film of our genre and look at what there titles are like , what they say and how we can convey our message.

Furthermore in terms of sound we needed to think about what music we need for the very begging of the video , although it would only be for a short time it must fit in with the theme and style of the video and therefore emphasize the quality of the video. I looked into some music that we could use way back before we decided our genre and I discovered the youtube page of "milosjanata" who produces free music for the usage of anyone. the song that he created that caught my eye was :




The reason I liked it is because it was well put together with subtle changes in tone which could go well to create dramatic tension. I still think something that is soft and theatrical like this can be used to create dramatic tension even in our new story.

GRAVITATIONAL STUDIOS -location 2 scouting

This location is in Astley cooper school so we could record in lesson time which leaves more outside school time for work




Seeing as it is in Astley copper we though to inquire about a drama teacher playing detective court. In the last lesson Adam was asked to do so and will get back with hopeful results.

GRAVITATIONAL STUDIOS - Conclusion of filming

Under is a video conclusion of the the days filming



Even though I filled in for '9' and therefore I will continue to play '9' it id not effect my role in directing and recording, it just gave Adam and Charlie the space to shoot the collation of all our our ideas even ones we had though of that night

we also Thanked the venue for having us , as they did so for free and were very flexible thus allowing us to get the best of what we had.



I apologise for the video begin the way it is. I tried to edit on the mac's in class on the video editing software we will eventually use for our video-finial cut , it converted the video in to a format my computer could not read nor upload , however I did get a good feel of how to use finial cut and to some screen shots , which I will try to upload next time we are in the mac room.

GRAVITATIONAL STUDIOS - Location scouting 2

This voice thread was done my Adam sarginson; in this voice thread he talks about a possible location to be used for both bits of shot.

Opening scene to the Departed

my embedding code doesn't seem to be working so here is the link to the opening I have talked about.

http://www.4shared.com/video/E6vJ5CDa/2011-11-14_06-24-39_710.html?

GRAVITATIONAL STUDIOS -Another cancellation

It seems our main actor for '9' has dropped out due to illness however we do have a plan , we will try and find another replacement but if worst comes t worst i will play '9' what this means is that I cannot direct a lot of the shooting tomorrow however it will also give Charlie and Adam a chance to express the creativeness more in there interpretations of the story board .

On a more positive note we have found candidates for the part of court and a possible location at longdean, the potential actors are at Longdean and so is the potential location , what this means is that having them play the part should be convenient and if I play the part of '9' then we would have less chance of unavailability and more chance of success.

Gravitational studios-Action Plan for this week

Today we came up with targets we hope to achieve in the week these where as follows

Monday
Prepare for the shooting on tuesday; this means:
-getting the props together
-make sure we are clear about the requirements of our actors and when we want them to arrive
-getting costume
- contact actors


Tuesday (record day)
we hope to record shots 6-11 with the added shot of the criminal '9' walking towards the space (we hope in doing this we will show more of the space and further emphasise the creepy period mis on scen)

Get recordings of sounds:
-of Laura pleading
-or the back ground e.g footsteps ,water flowing

make sure that we get the desired effect from both cameras the phone camera and the normal one.

Today i received the schools camera and tripod as a back up in case adam does not bring his along with this i plan to bring along:

-My phone camera (to shoot hand held scenes with the criminal)
-bring a towel/ pads for Laura's knees
-bring chalk to mark camera spots
-tights and a trench coat for criminals costume
-story board and plan for the day to help explain to the actors what's going to happen

then on wednesday we hope to look at our footage and talk about how it might go together and what music we want over it and what effects will be used. we will also need to talk about the layout/ design of the titles in the video. we then need to plan out our other location and check our actor availability for the dates we want and to confirm where we want to go.

Mobile blog-recasting

Due to our main actor canceling on our shoot date I have had to recast him to make sure that we keep up with plans and not get behind. 

My new actor fits the same profile and will hopefull perform as well if not better than the actor previously , and due to his close proximity to the dite he should be reliable.

I now need to confirm my actor playing court and the location in which it will be shot. Our location ideas where mostly in school as it is easy to get to and our requirements of this room I  which we will shoot is very basic.

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GRAVITATIONAL STUDIOS - Walk through of location and risk assessment

Walk through of main area




the reason why we picked this area (which is show in the first bit ) for our main area is due to the fact it has its own lighting which is industrial so doesn't take away from the theme as well as the fact it has enough space for the 180 degree rule to be put in place and used effectively


The filled in risk assessment and map showing where we will be filming

Mobile blog -change of plans

Due to the unexpected unavailability of our actors we have adjusted the plan so we achieve as much as possible.

Myself and adam will go as planned to work with the space , planning , shooting extra however charlie will go to school as normal and keep us informed on whats going on there.

We will no longer record after school but will make the most of are time in the day and  schedual the actual recording .

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GRAVITATIONAL STUDIOS - Interview with target audience

Sorry about the delay this was due to be uploaded a while ago





From this information we based our prezi and we looked at Roland Barthes' codes and how to use them.

GRAVITATIONAL STUDIOS - Costume and Logo

GRAVITATIONAL STUDIOS - Props and costume

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GRAVITATIONAL STUDIOS - The script

Due to the fact Charlie is a specialist in creative writing we delegated the job of creating a script for the voice over the criminal will speak whilst the detect interrogates.
This is what she came up with

Script
Criminal: “It starts with a thought. The thought that I could actually do this and get away with it. The police want to believe that they can find her but deep down they realise I’ll never let up. I saw her working behind the bar one night and became obsessed. The way she looked at me she wanted me to take her, she was begging for it. I waited until she’d left and closed up to follow her home. Stealthily I crept ensuring I wouldn’t be detected, hiding behind every car and tree.
“Lunging forward I grabbed her strategically placing my thumb and forth finger on her neck –an old trick I’d learned –to knock her unconscious. I took her to this old (I WILL ENTER THE PLACE WHEN WE FIND IT AND DESCRIBE IT). Tying her hands behind her back I laughed, the power I felt, dominance –I’m the alpha.”
Criminal is filming the woman.
[Woman is crying and pleading with the criminal to let her go]
The woman bites his ear.
[Criminal screams]
Back in the interrogation room when it is about to end.
Victim: [shouts] “WHERE IS SHE?”

Here are my comments on it:

GRAVITATIONAL STUDIOS - The logo

This is the original logo create by Adam who main jobs are sound, lighting and logo creation. when originally approached by it my self and Charlie though that there was something about it that wasn't quite right, we then concluded it was because it just did not embody the word gravitation, we thought that when you hear the word gravitation it has a big impact on the audience so the same should happen when you see it but it felt that this logo just didn't do that. when we took these problems to Adam he didn't quite know how to improve, and quite rightly so as what we had said was very vague and gave him no basis on which to improve on. However when we approached sir for help he gave us some constructive criticism , he said to make it more simpler as simple works best, Adam took this and made a new logo




Adam made the light and the colours less loud and more simple well as removing the spot light that made the logo seem cartoon like -which is not what we are. We agreed this was better.

GRAVITATIONAL STUDIOS- Wednesday action plan

In today's lesson we made a movement on our location and secured it for our filming, as I found this location I was responsible for doing so so I talked to a woman called Sue to guaranteed me permission to shoot for wednesday 4 o'clock. but before we get into shooting actual footage we have to make sure that we get all our ideas sorted before hand and make sure that we fill in our risk assessment (made by Charlie green) we I talked to Sue and she allowed us to come in at lesson time in order to meet her and see/play with the space.
In this time I would hope that we would have:

- Made sure we know which area in the paper mill we are going to shoot in and where we will place our actors (although we have a story board I believe it is a basis in which we can further improve as we have be given such an amazing space to work with we may adapt the shots to better suit it - hence why I intent to look at some more intros to films to see how they would uses similar spaces)

-Made sure we shoot a walk through and take pictures of the area to upload to our blogs and talk about (preferably in voki).In this walk though I hope to give the audience of that video a feel of what the area will look like and and maybe hint to how it would be used.

-Filled in our risk assessment making sure the area is suitable for ourselves and our actors. One thing we already though about was if we are to have our female actor on her knees all the time the rough ground may cause her discomfort and maybe even bruising so in order to prevent this we thought about maybe putting a towel under her knees or pads to make her more comfortable consequently this would mean that we must not show her knees at angle which gives it away or we cannot use it through out.


Adam has said he will try and get his own camera for Wednesday and some artificial lighting however we will make sure we bring one as a back up in case anything goes wrong.

GRAVITATIONAL STUDIOS -Possible final location

On the weekend i came across a place that looked perfect, this place was apsley paper. The reason i though this place so good was due the ambiance created by the area at night, it gives the perfect feel for a crime fiction dramatic film.




Its a Derelict industrial estate with 1900s industial age amachinary ;perfect for where we envisioned are criminal would take our prisoner as just from he inside look you get the feeling the place in isolated and derelict therefore making the situation much more frighting and giving that film noir feel to it.
Due to the fact it is November it will become darker a lot quicker this means that when we plan to shoot which is the evening we will be in pitch black thus allowing us to ulter the lighting in what ever way we want therefore giving much more options to work with at a earlier time which is convenient for both us , the staff and our actors.

The location is in close proximity to where we as a group live (this includes actors and directors) in majority and it doesn't seem a problem to get to for anyone which makes it on of the best location choices so far. securing the location doesn't seem to be a problem as there is a charity organisation running within the the paper mill which is happy to co-operate with schools and school projects,they even offered to allow us to shoot after the mill is closed , this is also perfect as that mean we would not have any sound interference from the large machines

Captins blog week 4, school adition- Prezi

Today we did our presention infront of the class to show our ideas thus far :

Copy of Gravitational Studios- pitch on Prezi

I believe the presentation went well however i think it could have gone alot better, reason being because we had not praticed it therfore at some pionts it seemed almost robotic-due to the fact we read them out.
However it though the use of prezi went well , it was visual and enetertaining and informative.
the only thing we didn't talk about was the charters and the fact we had already casted some role's.
when deciding the story boad we had some help from a friends father, in helping us we saw him as perfect for the part of our crimial; due to the fact his normal characteristics where what we invisioned our criminal would have.so we asked him and he excepted.we also on the same day came across a lead girl for the victim who has experience in acting infront of a camera.
Bothe actors have bothe the enthusiasum and talent we are look ign for.

There was varied standerd in the clas however there were some who werevery good due to the amount of detail the included.