Work Experience Day 3

Bath Spa organised a workshop for the college involving music and performing arts students. African musicians performed with classical musicians. The hybrid event was put on to inspire the students, whether they wanted to involve themselves in dancing, acting, singing or playing a musical instrument. The media students involved in the bath chronicle work experience were asked to film the performance which will be made into a 3 minute film of highlights. After filming we interviewed the musicians, this will be made into an article.

Directors

‘I like my films to be visceral – to burst right through the door at the beginning’

Danny Boyle is an English film director, producer, screenwriter and theatre director, known for his work on films such as Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, The Beach, 28 Days Later, Slumdog Millionaire, and 127 Hours.

I found a video of Danny discussing how his style of film is influenced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvvxnhstDIg

At a point in the video he discusses how film directors come up with the ideas of a film and he says, ‘’you discover it as you go along” this depicts that he feels that you don’t need to stick to a specific schedule and you should pick up ideas and inspiration on the way.

TRANCE clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JKrWFd8Q5U

Sir Ridley Scott is an English film director and producer. He is best known for his atmospheric and concentrated visual style.

In his own words: “I’m a filmmaker, not a documentarian. I try to hit the truth.”

“Scott was one of the first to make the crossover, developing his ability to sell a product in 30 seconds into a knack for selling a story in 100 minutes.”

Even without dialogue, a Ridley Scott film is recognised by the use of lighting, shadow, wide shots and extreme detail.

THE ADVENTURE BEGINS clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3pvcVWnedc

COMPARE AND CONTRAST

Ridley Scott has a more recognisable style, it appears that people can separate his films from others purely because of the camera angles. When I looked back at my film I thought about some shots that I could’ve done differently with inspiration of Ridley and I decided that wide shots could’ve been used in my film.

Example of wide shots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHcHYisZFLU

Political film evaluation

Overall I am pleased with how everything went however there is a slight problem with my film due to the absence of one of my main characters I had a use a different student to play his part which might make the film quite confusing. However apart from that I am pleased with each video shot, I have used a range of shots including pan shots, tilt shots, mid shots and close ups. I had planned each shot before filming therefore it was a lot easier and quicker to film. However at the beginning I struggled with using the camera, for example I found it difficult to get the camera to focus on the characters. I am not completely happy with my audio purely because of background noise and because I am new to filming I still struggle to get perfect audio.

If I could do this project again I would give myself more time to film, I left some of it to last minute and waited for the majority of my group to finish their filming therefore I felt like I was rushing a bit. I also assumed that editing the footage wouldn’t of taken as long as it did. Lastly I would’ve spent more time thinking about the structure and storyline of my movie because I feel like my script was quite difficult to write and reenact when filming.

For my next project I will spend a lot of time trying to make it as successful as I can and not rush it at all. I will also look into using different microphones to get a better audio.
During this project I enjoyed working with a group of people and filming together, I also liked being creative when writing the script. The people in my group were very helpful and reliable, they had time to be in my film and they were very patient with me. I found that working in a group with people was better because they encouraged me and helped me whenever I got stuck. I am pleased with the planning and pre production, it feels like such a long time ago I created a schedule however I’m so glad I did because it gave me goals to achieve for each section of the pre production.

Political film treatment

Title -  The Speech

Log line - There are two leaders (John and David) performing a speech to win the election, one of the leaders is a bit of a bully (David) and is overly confident that he is going to win. David’s speech gets ruined and it is a PI that does it.

Synopsis -The political film begins with all characters stood in a hall, there are two main characters (John and David), they are the leaders of two different political parties, each of them are preparing to perform a speech. Both leaders decide to walk outside for some fresh air before the big moment, as they do John accidentally bumps into david, he is very apologetic however David snaps back with a couple of rude comments. John keeps his anger in and tries to be sival then they both walk back and the camera shows a ‘PI’ in a black jacket watching them then walking out of the scene.
Now each of the leaders are back in the main hall they hear some comments about each other from across the room which makes them even more determined to win this election with an impressive speech. David says to his team that he is extremely confident that he is going to win the election whilst John is feeling nervous and threatened by him. The last scene shows John presenting his speech, it goes very well and everyone in the audience is cheering for him. Whilst David is standing up he looks down at his speech and we see a extreme close up of his face which is covered with fear, he then races over to John and punches him. Finally we see a close up of the speech which has been ruined then the PI is shown walking out of the building very quickly.

Target audience - The target audience for this film isn’t very specific, the genre is a political drama therefore I would say it is mainly aimed at adults because I think they would be interested in political films.

Characters- John- A male political party leader, he is 35. John is a strong character however he is kind and doesn’t like to be involved in arguments. David is another male political party leader, he is 43. David is very confident and arrogant, he also becomes across as a bit of a bully. The main in the black jacket only appears in the film twice, he is a sneaky character which leaves the audience thinking.

3-act structure -
Act 1

All characters are in the election hall discussing their speeches and rehearsing then both leaders walk outside and John bumps into David, David is very unpleasant about the incident and a ‘PI’ sees this conversation then walks out of the shot.

Acts 2

Both political leaders are preparing their speeches whilst trying to ignore the tension in the room which is noticed by individual members of each party. David makes a few snide comments towards John however he decides to be mature and ignore them.

Acts 3

David is feeling extremely confident that he will win this election because of his speech that he is about to perform however John is feeling nervous.
John performs his speech and it has a brilliant response, he is happy with how it went and the whole party are now feeling more confident. As David is standing up to give his speech he looks down at his speech which a worried look on his face then stomps over to John and punches him. The camera then has a close up of the speech which has been ruined and then shows the ‘PI walking out of the building secretly.

Phones in class animation

Animation progress so far:

In this lesson I began to create my animation showing how phones should be used in class. Firstly I made an extra layer then I added a symbol for each drawing of the phones. When I had made each symbol and dragged the first one onto the background layer and added a keyframe at the beginning and the end, in the middle I added a motion tween motion and moved the image off the frame, I will do this with the rest of the symbols until I am pleased with my animation.

This is my animation, it was different than I hoped the end product to look like because I lost a couple of symbols. The animation is supposed to be giving out a message to say that you should not be using social networking sites online and it should always be on silent. What this animation misses is that phones can be useful at times, for example using a calculator on your mobile phone can be quicker and more effective. There is a print screen of the calculator above the animation which shows that it is supposed to be in the finished animation however I somehow lost it. 

Final animation:

Although I had a problem with losing my work I managed to get all the frames that I needed. In another lesson we were asked to make a soundtrack for the video therefore I have to make a YouTube video, here is the link. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qAsv1cFjzk&feature=youtu.be

Storyboard

For this task I will be making an animation story of how to use mobile phones appropriately in class. Here is my storyboard, the first box shows a phone which demonstrates what the animation will be focusing on, then the phone shows a number of social networking sites which should not be used in class because they cause you to get distracted from the work you are doing. I have then included an appropriate use of a phone, for example a calculator which can allow you to do maths quickly and effectively. The very last box depicts that phones should be on silent at all times during class.

6 word gif

In our interactive lesson we were asked to come up with a six word story explaining what we got up to on the weekend. My sentence was 'We ate chips, we like chips'. When I was happy with the sentences I used I opened up flash and made two layers; on the first layer I wrote, 'we ate chips' and on the second I wrote 'we like chips'. On each layer I found the timeline at the bottom and inserted a keyframe at the beginning and the end, I then inserted a classic tween and dragged the text down the page. I also rotated the text to make the gif look more exciting.