Z1 Interviews

We were split into groups and took it in turns to interview and be interviewed, we would then have to edit them. We used a Z1 and a Rifle mic.
Rachel and I were on screen for one group. We then swapped over and filmed them. It was a one to one interview in which we used a two shot and over the shoulder shots. We also took time to film a few noddies.

We found that Mike, our interviewee was not that confident on camera and kept laughing, therefore we had to edit some bits out, a good cover up was also to use noddies as he kept moving in his chair.
I enjoyed this task as it was fun, but we also gained a good knowledge on recording sound and it was good practice for filming in the future.

City Of God Sound edit

Sadly I cant put the sound edit up as it will break copyright rules!

In this exercise we were asked to look at a clip from the film 'City Of God', if you click here and watch from 3:56 to 4:30 this is the clip we used. We were given this clip with no sound and we were asked to create a 'soundscape' to fit it. I created my soundscape on Soundtrack Pro and used sounds from the library on there but I also used sounds from 'sound dogs', which is a sound effects website. I found this very useful as it was actual sounds people had recorded which sometimes fitted better than the soundtrack pro sound effects. Also this would make my soundscape different to others in my class.

I tried to make my piece quite realistic using diegetic sounds, for example when the football hits the wood I used a 'bang',also I used police sirens when there was a shot of the police cars. Aswell as using diegetic sound I thought it would be interesting to include both non-diegetic and meta-diegetic sound. When the boy looks up and sees the police and the gang I used a high pitched sound as if to portray the fear he was feeling. Finally I used non diagetic sound for when the camera span round him. I used a 'whish' of a baseball bat and the sound of a jet plane to emphasize the quick spinning edit. I found all these sounds fitted well.

I really enjoyed this task as it felt as though I brought another dimension to the piece, and I found it very interesting that with different sounds that I used a different atmosphere was created.

Another minuite for our feauturette!

Today we watched the Mocumntary by Spike Jonaz called Torrance Rises. Spike had created the video 'praise you' by Fat Boy Slim and this was a mocumentary looking at the aftermath of this video and the 'next step' as it were.
Although this was a mocumntarty and we are doing a featurette, it was very useful to see the content they included. This made me think about our feturette and what we should include.

I browsed the internet in search of inspiration for our featurette, looking at interviews and live shot gigs.

I found this T4 music special with Mariah Carey. I like in this feature they have changed locations, and done many different interviews so you can see different sides of her. I thought the ending rounded the feature off nicely as after the show he catches up with her to ask how the show went. I would like to include this in our featurette.



Click on this link to see another documentary that has inspired me.

I really like the switch between performance and interview in this short programme. Also i think the lack of presenter works in their favour. The show seems toput the band in question in the spotlight more and you feel like you are watching something completely about them.

Group Project in the pipe line

Although we loved the idea for escape to sea, due to the inconvenience of traveling to Brighton we came up with another idea.

Patrick's housemate Ricky Poole has started to play gigs in which he raps. Recently he has joined forces with the band Tamakai. It is still to be arranged when their next gig is but as they both are situated around Bath and Bristol this is much more convenient.

We have been in contact with them asking where they think they might play next and there is a strong possibility that they are going to be playing at the Thunderbolt on the 14th April. This would be a great storyline as this would be the first round of 'Surface Unsigned' in which there would be many rounds, creating a possibility for an extended story. Lets hope they get through!

Paintworks Pitch

Today Patrick and I made a powerpoint for our pitch later on in the day at paintworks.
We included all what was discussed and decided on from our last meeting.

Here is our powerpoint:


Escape to sea -

I really enjoyed the day at 'Paintworks' in Bristol. We were taken on a tour around the building , and we could see where we would possibly be working in the third year ! also we were told Noel Edmonds was near by filming 'deal or no deal' so that was very exciting.......

We were last to pitch , so i was a bit nervous after seeing all the other presentations. It was really interesting listening to all the other pitches as we hadn't actually fully heard each of our course mates' ideas! There was a really diverse mixture of genres for example some were making short films, spoofs, and documentaries.

Once we got up in front of everyone, I actually really enjoyed pitching, and I think all of our group did really well. It was really useful having Nic Jeune ,We received good, useful feedback form him which helped to indicate which parts of our featurette were too complicated/ didn't work etc.

After we had finished our presentations he said that he thought they were well thought out and he was impressed by our professionalism. Hopefully this indicated that we would act well in work after university if we are pitching to a company.

OH MY GOD! filming time!

We were put in groups. My team was Rachel Sowden, Keiran Jones and Tom Charnley.
We were given a brief script called 'Oh My God'. We were asked to shoot around 15 shots for this short film. We had been asked to film right to left.

We also had been taught about the 180º rule, in which you have to stay on the same side of the invisible 180º line otherwise it will confused the viewer once the shots are put on screen because the left to right/right to left rule wont apply. For example if a train is shot on both side of the 180º line the train will look as it has changed directions if the shots keep changing.



The basic outline for the film was : A girl gets an important phone call in which she immediately sets off to try and help. The film ends with a reaction shot after she has opened the door of our classroom.


We were shown this video by Robert Rodriguez, which explains in 10 minutes how to make a good low budget film. This was useful for this project and also will come in useful for our future.




Whilst making our mini film, we used a tripod which kept the camera steady and at the correct angle, this gave it a professional feel.
I was the 'actress' in this film , and i don't think i looked particularly professional.
We managed to get lots of different shots from different angles, obviously using the correct health and safety procedures. When tom was filming me running toward him , keiran held his back to prevent him failing over.

Tom lived in student accommodation near by, so we took this opportunity to use the copious amount of stairs to get some interesting shots. Whist filming a few times we got confused about right to left, and had to think through what it would look like once we were watching it back.
We also took into account how professional films used close ups, and used closeups for such moments as the phone ringing, we filmed a close up of the phone, and we also did empty screens, where you run into shot. Other techniques we used were over the shoulder, panning, and high angle shots.

When we have logged and captured our film and edited it together I will put the film up on this blog.

So far, as I haven't seen the finished product yet, I feel our filing went well and we worked well as a group, I feel that our shots looked steady and professional , and we used a good variety.