Behind Closed Doors - Actor Release Forms

When a cast is formed for a film, they must sign a contract. We did this for our film, and here are the embedded examples:

Alex Marks (Richard)

Rebecca Chapman (Alice)

Millie Russell (Stacey)

Daniel Dabbs (Paper Boy)

Back of the Release Forms

Behind Closed Doors - Preparing for the Shoot

Equipment booked:

        It is key that the group book out the equipment they need for the times they need them, as this is the only way to ensure that group will have them available for the times they want them. There is only a limited amount of equipment, like there's only two cameras but three groups, so the booking system allows the groups a 'first come first serve' idea, so they can get their hands not he equipment they require.

Screenshot of the equipment booking screen.

Transport:

        We are filming at Daniel's house. Because of this, it makes transport rather straightforward  My house is very close to the school, so my group and I can carry the equipment to my house and then out it in the car to take it to Dan's or we can get my mom to meet us at school and collect the equipment directly. Dan's house is not far from mine, maybe a five minute drive, so his mom can also participate in the transport should she need to. However, as Deanna and Charlotte live a good fifteen minutes away (by car), they will need to use their parents or a form of public transport to get here, unless my mom can pick them up.

Printing Documents:

        All digital information that we needed on paper has been printed by me and Deanna at school, and has been distributed to the actors accordingly. The documents are kept safely on our blogs so if we need to reprint something, we have good access to them.

Crew Roles:

        Crew roles have been discussed in my production team. Deanna will be assuming ultimate control by being the director. She will guide the rest of the group around and organise the sessions we are going to carry out.
        I will be doing most of the shooting, as I really enjoy it and feel fairly confident because of my past experience with the cameras.
        Daniel will be in control of the sound recording. He'll be using the location recording kit to capture the sounds we need to put into our film and create a good effect. He did this last year, so has a good understanding of the equipment and how it works.
        Charlotte has not got a particular role, but will be co-directing with Deanna and doing bits of filming and sound as well. She'll probably be in charge of the lighting and reflectors, along with Daniel.

Practice for specific shots &/or effects:

        Our production team know exactly what the biggest problem is when we're filming: focusing. To combat this, we will be taking the external monitoring kit out with us to locations so we can know what the focusing looks like on a bigger screen. We have considered the crane, and if we decide to use this we may want to practice setting it up and controlling it. We may also need to have a few tries with the new Final Cut Pro software, making sure we know how to use it correctly.

Behind Closed Doors - Shooting Schedule

        The shooting schedule is a useful resource that all members of the group should pay close attention to. Having one and using one allows the group to stay on focus and on track, meaning the group can finish the work on time. It also lists the props the group need to use on that particular time and so they can make sure they are well prepared for the shooting session. The main point of the schedule is to make sure the filming sessions allow the right shots to be filmed, which is why there is a number for the shot and scene with the date.
        The shooting schedule is one of the most useful resource that we have created, in terms of helping us create our final product. Without it, we can't film the product add we will not know what we're filming and when, and what equipment to bring on what dates.We have a total of two weeks to film, but according to our schedule, we'll only need half that time to film it. This allows a few days to get shots reshot, should we need to, and extra touches to be finalised.

Example of a Shooting Schedule

Shooting Schedule Part 1:

        The first part of the shooting schedule is set to film parts of scene 2, the argument scene. We're shooting this first because it is the most important scene and also the longest, and exists in the middle of our film. Also, it is easier for us to shoot after school as because it's winter, the night draws in earlier. Weekends are better for the day-time shots, as we have time in the morning to do them.

Shooting Schedule Part 1

Shooting Schedule Part 2:

        Part two will be the time we shoot scenes 1 and 3, the beginning and end of our film short. We'll start with the establishing shot, and and with the final shot of the necklace lying on the ground. The shots in scenes 1 and 3 are shorter and simpler, which is half the reason why we decided to shoot them after scene 2.

Shooting Schedule Part 2

Behind Closed Doors - Animatic

        We now had to contract our film's animatic. This is a series of pictures (taken from the storyboard) which are put in chronological order of where they would appear in the film. The pictures' lengths are set, transitions are put in and a soundtrack is created over the top. Sound effects are also added to create the feel of what's happening in the animatic. If dialogue is present in the film, sound recordings of these lines will be put over the top of the soundtrack.
        The purpose of an animatic is to give an idea of the film's narrative and what it will follow when the film is created. It is a way of figuring out a final idea, and problems are caught early-on so you can reforge the film before recording anything.

Evaluation of the Animatic

        Above is the animatic for out film Behind Closed Doors, embedded from YouTube. I believe that the animatic went rather well. It took about three to four hours to roughly edit the animatic into place, and a further three to four hours to put the soundtrack in. Another few hours later, it was complete, voice recordings and everything adjusted into place. The soundtrack really brings it to life, especially the emotion our voice actors put into the dialogue. Because of our issues with our actors, we had to make a last-minute request in the Media group, and Jack and Lucy stepped up to the mark and spoke for our two characters.

        The drawings took a long time, especially since we went over the pencil drawings in pen to make sure the scanner would pick them up successfully. We then annotated all of the pictures and put them into a post.

        The animatic, in my opinion, went successful. There was a sound effect we didn't get in, which we would have liked to, which was the letterbox sound. In the final film we'll just record the letterbox at Daniel's house.

        The finished animatic is 4 minutes and 28 seconds long. This is a good length, as the maximum time is 5 minutes, so we want to get as close to that time as possible to allow us the most marks by having more time to fulfil the criteria.

Below is an embedded example of an animatic from a real feature length film

Behind Closed Doors - Storyboard

        The past week or so, my production team and I have been working on the storyboard for our film Behind Closed Doors. We were quite pleased with getting seventy separate pictures, and we believe we will make a successful animatic and,. later on, film based on the storyboard we've put together.

Storyboard Research

        Storyboards were originally created for animated cartoons such as Walt Disney's Micky Mouse. The idea of a storyboard is to create a preview of what the shots will all look like, which is important because you can go back and edit these when you come to film, or change ideas completely to save wasting time and resources filming footage of things that actually look bad. Usually, the production of a storyboard is a time-consuming process, having to create every single image to represent a shot, which is hundreds or thousands in real feature films. Luckily, we only have five minutes, but we intend to make these five minutes count!

Storyboard Conventions:

• The Scene Number is important to define where the shot is in the film. Behind Closed Doors has three scenes, and so writing these in gives a general idea of what setting the shot is in.

• The Shot Number is an extremely important piece of information, especially when the animatic is created. In a film, there's hundreds, sometimes thousands of shots used, so numbering them is vital.

• The Shot Type being used is displayed through the image portrayed in the scene sketch, but often labelled in the annotations.

• The Drawings of the Scene allows the producer to see the film in advance. It makes your ideas come alive and with it a film is created or new ideas are formed, allowing the production team to edit the film if they deem it necessary.

• The Scene Number are again used to prevent any confusion from occurring, such as scenes or shots getting mixed up and misplaced.messed up storyboard, and potentially ruining the completed product.

• The Details used in the shots is written underneath the sketch so you have a rough idea of the details. This can help create a mental note of how long the shot must be to fit in the planned movements or dialogue.

• The Camera Movements are shown on the storyboard through arrows and the positioning of the images on the storyboard as well as annotations below the sketch.

Behind Closed Doors - Storyboard

Production Review

        I am going to discuss my group's progress this year towards the production of our A2 product. The purpose of this post is to inform you of what I think about me and my group's progress in Media this year.

The Road so Far

        As of now, we have completed the majority of the posts we need to complete by the deadline on Friday 28th November 2014. We need to now have the storyboard scanned and then we can get to work on the storyboard post and animatic. We also need to get the actor release forms filled in and scanned, ready for friday.

        I am personally enjoying the course so far, and I believe we will be able to complete all the posts and objectives by the deadline set. The rush to complete everything is stressful, but will be rewarding when it is completed.

How Well are we Following our Schedule

        At the moment, my group is struggling to get these last few objectives completed, especially the animatic. We have done the storyboard in record time, and so we will get them scanned in time to complete the animatic. On progress day, we will be spending a lot of time in the media suite to make sure we do get it done in time.

Our Group Discussion with Mr Hood

        Our production team met with Mr Hood to discuss this year's progress so far. We informed him about our personal blog states, and we offered a rating between 1 and 10 on how confident we are on our progress. Then, we were asked about how we are doing as a group. Mr Hood told us that we have conflicting personalities within our group, and so we need to work on us collaborating as a team and make sure nobody becomes argumentative or overly-bossy or too lazy.