Preliminary Task - "Cringey Joe"

This was our preliminary task - Cringey Joe
We have still included aspects from this in our film Strides but feel we have improved much more since then.

Improvements.

If we had time to go back and make any improvements I think that we could of improved a lot of our camera shots. Some of the shots are very shaky, which is a fault of ours for not having the camera on the tripod steadily. Also I think that we should of allowed ourselves more time to do the original split screen editing that we set out to do in the beginning. This would of made our film a lot more successful and interesting and would of portrayed the message of the differences between the characters that we planned to make.

I also think we could of made more effort with costume & props, to make them seem more convincing. The idea of the drug dealing isn't shown as clearly as intended, and we could of made this more realistic. We could of been a bit more experimental with the camera work too, maybe a few more close ups.

Finally, I think that we could of maybe produced our soundtrack ourselves, rather than having a very common song choice, although this does attract the audience.

Evaluation Activity 1.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 

Evaluation Activity 1. on Prezi

Sweet Disposition: Interview Song.

Sweet Disposition

Working Title.

Working Title Films is a British film production company which is based in London. It produces feature films and several television productions. This is the production company that we feel would be most suited to our film 'Strides'. They have produced many films with similar storylines to ours... Here are a few examples... 

Progress.

Today we are adding all the finishing touches to our Opening Sequence. We are nearly finished... Just had a few technical issues with our soundtrack but we're solving these problems at the moment. We still need to add our Titles which we are currently editing.

Casting Shots.

Thomas Merritt

Miguel Nkegbe

Rhys Dewar 

Live Type.

We have used the programme 'Live Type' to create our opening sequence titles. We decided this would be the best programme to use as it looks more professional and is much quicker and easier to use. We went for a standard font type ( Bodoni Svty Two SC ITC TT Book) as we didn't want the titles to look too fancy and to ensure that they fitted in with the film. We used an effect called 'Slurp Down' to make the titles look more interesting and we thought this suited the film more than any of the other effects to choose from. Each title only lasts for 5 seconds as we didn't want them to drag out for too long.

Here is a screen shot of some of our titles being created using the software.

Current Editing.

At this precise moment in time we are editing all the footage we have filmed this week. We have a lot of random footage we don't need to include so this is taking even longer to edit. We aim to finish our editing this evening so that tomorrow we can add all of the finishing touches. 

Why We Chose These Locations.

We decided to film our Opening Sequence in these locations as we found that the 3 different doors, one including a gate, were the most intriguing areas to portray the different characters personalities. The two doors were filmed in different areas of school, as it proved easier to gather our actors here. The gate door was filmed in the Annex, a separate building near school. Each door was initially supposed to be filmed at each actors house but this was unable to be filmed in time. 


We used an alley way in Eden Park as a substitute location to our council estate. We were unable to film in a council estate but thought that this was a good location to shoot our Opening Sequence at as it gives off the same atmosphere. Also we found the lighting in this location worked really well.

Location Shots.

Issues During Filming.

We have now officially filmed all of our footage for our Opening Sequence. During this filming process we have encountered quite a few issues. The first issue was that we didn't have the correct number of boys to film and therefore we have had to make a few slight changes to our storyboard. Instead of filming 4 different boys from different backgrounds we have only used 3. This consequently means that we will not be using the 4 split screen. 

The next issue we found was that we could not film in the location that we initially intended to. We wanted to use a council estate but due to lack of time and organisation we were unable to. We found a alternative location that although is not exactly what we initially had in mind, reflects the same atmosphere, and similarly represents our genre. 

Soundtrack Change.

We have decided that we need a continuous soundtrack underneath our Opening Sequence, rather than different soundtracks for each character. This will help the sequence to appear more fluid, and help to attract and hold viewer attention.

Filming.

All together our filming took 3 days: On the first day of filming, we filmed our first boy. During this time, we experimented with different angles and shots. This helped us to establish what would work, and what wouldn't. For example, we found that following our character down the stairs was harder than we first anticipated, and so consequently, this shot features only for  a brief moment of time in our Opening Sequence.

During the second day of filming, we shot the next 2 characters. This meant a change of location. This day of filming went relatively smoothly, the only problem being uneven ground surface whilst filming the first of the 2 boys. Unfortunately, this is evident in our final shots. However, there were many positives taken from this shoot, including the fact that the location chosen was very aesthetically pleasing. Whilst filming the final individual shots, we found that the filming took longer than we had thought it would due to lack of concentration... 


During the third and final day of filming, it was time to bring all of the characters together in one location. Fortunately for us the weather was perfect, providing not only fantastic lighting, but a light hearted mood on set. After approximately an hour of filming, we had successfully shot all of our final scenes, and ultimately finished filming entirely.