Filming the Main Exercise

Our film is about two girls that are twins. The synopsis goes as such; two twin girls, who were separated at birth and bought up to live completely different lives. One girl lives a privileged life whilst the other girl lives a much less privileged life. The girls might later meet up, or find each other, but we were only creating the first two minutes of a film, so we didn't think about the rest of the plot in too much detail.
When we filmed at the main exercise I faced a few problems. The main problems came when setting up the tripod, especially at out first location. It was much more difficult to film inside someones home, than in a classroom, (like where we filmed our preliminary exercise). I faced problems such as setting the camera up in a narrow hallway to film our actress walking down the stairs. We had to over come this problem, as this shot held a very important meaning in our clip. The shot of the 'posh' twin (girl two) walking down the stairs in heels was put in the opening trailer, to represent the wealth that girl two held over girl one (the 'poor' twin). In a later shot, we show girl one walking down the stairs in trainers this contrasts to the first shot of girl two. We did manage to over come the problem and get the shot, however, you couldn't really see that girl two was in fact wearing heels. This was a problem that wasn't taken into account fully, until we began putting out production together.
This is how the shot was supposed to look, however when filming we took the shot from the side, looking at herfrom behing when she walked down the stairs.





















Another problems with the tripod was trying to fit it in a dining room, around the table and chairs. Once I had set the tripod up, it was okay, and we got the right shots, however, it was difficult for me to get behind the camera and actually shoot it, getting the zooms and tracking correct for the shot. This problem was common in shooting in the bedrooms also, as they were quite small rooms. I felt that I would be held to blame if the shots weren't right, yet I wasn't really given very space efficient locations to film in.
In the end I think the filming went well. We got all the shots we needed to make our clip, and we stuck to the script and storyboard really well. I felt that I had full control of the camera, and was allowed more freedom by the rest of my group. This allowed me to be slightly more creative with the shots, and give more of my personal opinion when filming.
One thing that we did do to help us when filming our production was to keep count of how many shots we took of each scene. This made it easier for us when we had uploaded the video footage onto Windows Movie Maker. We had to take our shots in different a different order to the order that the scenes would eventually go in. This meant that wehen filming we had to muddle of shots, in order to keep the continuity running through out the entire clip. To check that we had filmed all the scenes we numbered them as we went along, so before filming at the second location we already know how to go about getting all our shots without getting confused about what we had and had not filmed.

Here is an example of we kept count of our shots that we had taken.

Main Exercise Updated

We have now filmed out entire production, and it's gone really well. We filmed at two locations on two different dates, differing by a week. Finding places to film wasn't very difficult, because as it turned out, Sarah and I both had houses that were perfect for out production. I took on the role of camera woman again in this production, and I found that it went much better then when we filmed our preliminary exercise. I thought that my zoom and my panning were a lot smoother, than when I filmed for the first time. With regards to out paperwork, we have managed to produce a strong final script and a good storyboard, however we need to develop our research further and expand on our original notes. When we filmed at our second location Andy wasn't present, however this didn't cause too much of a problem. The problem that we have faced, has been when we've gone to edit. This is because Andy supposed to be the editor of our production, however he has missed a few of the lessons and so we've had to edit our production without him. This hasn't been too difficult as between us we know how to use Windows Movie Maker, however next lesson we are intending to use Adobe Pro to add a couple of titles to our production. We have completed location recees for our first location, however we are yet to of produced our second location, location recees.
When it came to filming at the second location, I defiantly felt that I did a better job than when filming the preliminary exercise. I felt that I had more control over the camera. I also felt that the rest of my group allowed me to have more control, thus meaning I could learn from my own mistakes, and film the shots that I felt would work well with our production. We are now having major problems pulling together our production and cutting the the clip perfectly and adding titles. This is because Andy has been absent a lot recently, and he is supposed to be the main editor of our media piece. Between the rest of the group and I we have tried our best to make the publication good, however we lack the knowledge of being able to use Adobe Pro to do the finishing touches.
I need to get the photographs of my house to put in for the second location, and then our folder should be complete. This is good as it shows that we have worked consistently and kept track of all of our decisions, and planning.

Main Excersise

I had been really looking forward to creating the main excersise. So far we are doing really well. We have found one location, and done location recees. We are still working well as a group, and have made very good progress so far. Andy was incharge of the research into our audience. He lost the first piece of research due the computering system at college, so therefore he had to start again. Our opening sequence is the opening qequence to a 'chick flick' film. We looked at the opening squences to films like, 'Legally Blonde', 'The Princess Diaries' 'The lizzie McGuire Movie' and 'The Devil Wears Prada' and 'New York Minute' (shown below).



These films vary in the target age of the audience, for example: 'The Devil Wears Parda' has an older audeince than 'The Lizzie McGuire Movie'.