Rough Cut for Young Eyes!

 

 

Here is our rough cut for our thriller opening that we have received feebback from in class.

Editing- Plan for Editing Workshop

Ami is planning to do some editing on Tuesday and Wednesday when he has no lessons, after Ami finishes the part that he is working on, Emma and Nyomi will then focus on editing the editing of the sequence (from the collision of the jogger and lady). We will then add titles and sound to the sequence. We will be working on this in Thursdays lesson and Emma can also do some editing on Thursday after lesson.

Rough Cut of Young Eyes

Rough Cut Feedback

After our class watched our rough cut, we received some feedback which would help to improve our work. Overall, the group liked our creativity and use of split screens.
Rebeccas reminded us to make sure that the ending of our opening isn't humorous! Our thriller needs to create suspense and a tense atmosphere. If the end of our sequence is funny, it will not fit the sub-genre of our film.
We were advised to introduce Layla alone and to make sure that there were shots of her alone. We could do this using cross cuts.
It was suggested that we create some foley sounds to add to the beginning and end of our sequence. This would be before Ami puts his headphones in, and after Ami takes them out. For example, we could use the sound of the swans, the sound of the cars that go by.
The group also commented on the fact that there is no sound yet. this is because we haven't chosen the song yet as we need to choose one that is both upbeat and fits with our opening.
Rebecca also told us to check over the framing of all of our shots. There are a few that cut of Ami's head that could be altered slightly.

We have uploaded the rough cut onto our blog and will be working on our work all of next week during lessons and workout.

FILMING - Vlogs

Second Week of Filming

Day 4 - Monday 11th February;

On this day we meant to start filming the shots with Layla and Ben, however he was unavailable to film so we had nothing to film for that day. However me and Nyomi went to college and started to edit the opening with all the footage we had. Also we had a chance to go over all the footage that we recorded and assess what could be improved. 

Day 5 - Thursday 14th February;

Me the Jogger

Where we started to film

The day before, we had a discussion on whether to use Ben as a jogger as it was hard to find the right time to film with him. Therefore we came to the conclusion of me being the jogger instead. Me and Layla met up at college and took all the equipment to Victoria Park where we met up with Emma and Nyomi. We had to film the joggers introduction scene with him getting ready to jog and eventually jogging onto the street where the old lady was. At the start of the filming it began to rain a tiny bit but we decided to wait it out and was able to finish all the filming.

Day 6 - Friday 15th February

This was the last day we were filming and we filmed the bits when the jogger and old lady meet. We were on a tight schedule as everyone had to be places. We decided to use the end of the street while it was deserted as the death scene as we couldnt find a good alley way which was nearby. The weather was pretty good and we had good lighting.

First Week of Filming

Day 1 - Monday 4th February; 

Emma with the camera

We decided to film on this day straight after our pitch as it was the day the actor, Ben was free. Me and Emma were the only ones who went to film. Once we picked up all the equipment, we made ways towards Victoria Park but before then we met up with Ben at Bethnal Green. When we arrived at Victoria Park, we began to start filming the start scene of our film opening - the jogger running. Me and Emma were in constant rotation in regards to filming and directing. We got most of the shots recorded however it began to get colder and darker which made it harder to film. We eventually stopped recording due to the darkness and packed up. Emma took all the equipment home which was returned on then next day.

Day 2 - Tuesday 5th February; 

Layla aka Elizabeth 

Me filming

On this day, we were supposed to film the bits with both Ben and Layla but Ben couldn't make it. So we began to film the bits when the old lady is introduced. Me and Layla, met at college to pick up all the equipment and then we met up with Emma at Victoria Park. When we arrived at the park, I went off with the camera to record some establishing shots of the area. During this time, Nyomi arrived and Layla was getting ready as the old lady. When Layla was ready we began shooting her parts and everyone had a chance to film. Layla's acting was incredible and she looked like an old lady - well from the back anyway. We got a few shots done that day but had to stop as it began to drizzle a bit and it became a lot darker. We then realised that all the footage was to dark to use so we were forced to re-shoot all the shots.

Day 3 - 7th Thursday February; 

On this day, I met up with the team at the park while they brought all the equipment. We had to re-shoot all the shots which we done on Tuesday. This worked out in our favor as we able to make better shots as well as have better scenery which was more reliable. We moved to an actual street where there were pavements, cars and even cats. Once we began to film, we had a few people here and there and cars going past. But we manged to do all the shots with the best lighting possible. Once we finished filming, me and Nyomi headed back to college to return all the equipment. 

FILMING - Week 2

We took pictures of the storyboard for filming.

Ami getting reading to play the jogger.

Our second week of filming was a bit difficult to arrange, we managed to film Layla's parts again on Monday 11th and couldn't film until Thursday because of the bad weather.
We came to the decision as a group to get Ami to play our jogger as Ben had Uni and work which meant he wasn't free when we needed to film.
On Thursday we started to film Ami's parts. However, the rain meant that we had little time as we didn't want to damage any equipment.
On Friday we managed to finish filming completely. Fortunately, there was no rain and we had longer to film. We managed to get all of our shots and added some extra ones too.

Feedback from Pitch

On Monday the 4th of February, we had to present our pitch to the panel of staff and our whole class. We spent our break before to prepare for the pitch. This included going over what we were going to say and organizing which slides where to appear first. The pitch was put together by Emma who we gave all the information. We split all the information by whoever wrote it up.

Once we delivered out presentation, we begun to receive feedback from everyone. This pitch went very well as we didn't miss anything out and had an effective storyboard. The idea to use split screens in our opening was highly admired by Mickey. Mickey went on to describe our idea as "different" and "original". This made us happy about our whole idea as it did take a lot of developing.

We did receive a suggestion/advice about the voice over. The voice over was meant to come in where the jogger got hit. However we were told that it might confuse the audience. We are still unsure whether to use the voice over but we do plan to experiment with it.

Just before everyone thought it was over, I felt it was crucial to ask whether it would be "acceptable" to add the film title at the end of our opening. During our preparation I told my group about the idea of having the film title at the end. Once i asked the panel, they told us it is acceptable as there are 3 types of film opening conventional orders.

FILMING - Day 2 (05/02/13)

Ami filming Layla.

The weather forecast for Tuesday.

 On Tuesday we had planned to meet Ben in Victoria Park again so that we could film the shots with both Layla and Ben.

Ben hadn't replied to my message so we all took turns to film some shots of Layla. After an hour Ben still hadn't messaged me so we came to the conclusion that he wasn't going to show.

We filmed for a little while but then it began to lightly rain, we didn't want any equipment ruined and the lighting began to get darker so we decided to pack up.

It wasn't until I got home that Ben text me apologising, he said he had a busy morning and had fallen asleep. We arranged to film with him on Monday. Hopefully we'll be able to get a lot more shots completed.

PITCH - Feedback from Our Presentation.

On the day of the pitch we decided to meet up at lunch to run over the pitch one last time and make sure everyone was clear on their roles and what they were saying. We did this in the media workshop and during our time there we made some final changes to the presentation before rehearsing the actual pitch.

When everyone was happy and confident with their roles in the pitch we headed to the class to show our presentation to our teachers. Our pitch went really well. We all spoke clearly and explained in detail our storyline. Ater presenting our pitch the teachers gave us their feedback.

The teachers said that they were impressed by our storyline and that it was a very original and unique idea. They also praised us on our story board and said it was clear and easy to understand. One critisms given by Micky was to maybe leave our the part in our opening with the detectives speaking over the black screen. The other teachers agreed and said that we may be over complicating things and that our opening would work well without it.

After receiving feedback we decided that we would try the voice over to see if it worked but if not we would leave it out of our opening. Also Ami suggested to our group that it would be a good idea if we used our title at the end. We thought this would be a good idea as the film title 'Young Eyes' would appear over Layla's eyes and it wuld work well with our film opening.

We asked the teachers after the pitch and they said there were 3 main conventions to film openings and that one of them was to have the film title at the end so if we wanted to put our film title at the end then it could work as long as we kept to all the conventions of the title order.

PITCH - Feedback and first day of filming.

On Monday we presented our pitch to the class, the pitch went well and we didn't have many comments made at the end. Micky suggested that we didn't include the voice over at the end of our opening as he thought it may confuse people. He also said that he liked the use of split screens.

We were pleased with how it went and haven't made a final decision on the voice over, we want to decide on this during editing so it will be easier to tell whether the voice over works well with our opening or makes it more complicated.

As we had all brought in our forms signed by our parents, me and Ami were able to take out some equipment to start filming straight after lesson. Layla and Nyomi were busy so we went to Victoria Park where we began to film some of Ben's shots. We had printed out our storyboard to make the filming quicker and easier.

I completely forgot to take any pictures while filming so on the left are some images of the location, we thought that the scenery worked really well and there were many joggers who passed us while filming too.

We managed to get a variety of shots before the lighting became too dark to film and planned to film Layla and Ben's part in Tuesday.

We didn't face any problems, although, the lake that we filmed by had lots of swans and ducks that continuously came up to us while filming.

The Treatment - Brief Outline Of The Film

OUTLINE OF FILM 
After talking through various film ideas and storyline we finally came up with the film Young Eyes.
Young Eyes is a film about a serial killer who has been murdering innocent victims in her local neighbourhood. Each time she kills someone she is in disguise which makes it harder for her to be found out. The film follows two detectives who try their best to protect the neighbourhood by attempting to work out who the killer is. In the middle of the film a murder that shocks both of the detectives pushes them to new ideas and ways of finding the killer as they know they do not have much time left.

OUTLINE OF THE OPENING

In the opening the audience is introduced to two characters. One is an old lady who is struggling with shopping bags and the other is a jogger who is on his daily jog. The old woman drops her bags as the jogger runs past her and he offers to help her carry them home. She points towards an alleyway and he walks with her. As he walks up he notices she is not next to him and looks around to find that she has disappeared. He is confused and looks around to see where she is then suddenly is hit by her walking stick and the screen goes blank. After we see him laying on the floor as the old woman stands up right and walks away. She throws he walking stick and walks with confidence revealing to the audience that she is not the old, frail woman that the audience thought she was.

PITCH

PLANNING - Production Schedule

We had difficulties finding a time that was okay for all of us to film. We couldn't do any weekend as both Layla and Emma had plans already, and Nyomi is busy on Sundays. We wanted to film during the evening so we decided to film after college. We had to wait until after our other actor (Ben) to confirm that he was free.

Hopefully it will not rain while we are filming, the weather for Monday seems okay but it may rain on Tuesday.

This is our production schedule so far, it may change slightly when we see how much filming we need to do after Tuesday.

PLANNING - Locations

Here are some images that Emma took of Victoria Park, our main location for filming.

These two pictures were taken by Ami of a canal close to Mile End that we considered using in the thriller.

These pictures are of Brick Lane, another location that we  may use as there are many alley ways.

Storyboard of our Thriller Opening

This is our storyboard which we will use while filming our thriller opening. All the locations, props and actors are not certain and may appear different in the actual opening.

                                        

Evaluation of our Prelim

Once we had a clear storyboard of out prelim and we able to understand, we begun to film our prelim. We made sure we had a copy of our storyboard so we could include all the necessary shots that were crucial. This included a reverse and match cut. When we started filming we had to track Layla -to make this easier,we used a figrig that allowed us to have more control while tracking.

We also filmed close ups of Layla opening the door and shots from the back to show Layla entering the room. Once we started filming in the room, we started off with a pan of Layla walking in and sitting down. We then filmed the reverse shot of Nyomi that was put together while editing. Once that bit was done we begun to film the conversation then ended with a close of both characters doing a hand shake.
During this whole process we came across a few problems. The first problem we came across was the lighting in the corridor was dark that prevented the audience from seeing clearly. Another problem is that there was a lot of background sound that interrupted our filming. Lastly, the film where Layla and Nyomi met was very small which made it difficult to film over the shoulder shots. However we overcame this problem by shifting the table and chairs whilst placing the camera right against the wall.

Planning - Our Inspirations

For our thriller opening we had many inspirations which inspired things such as;

• The sub-genre 
• Title Sequence 
• Editing

Our thriller opening is mainly focused on psychology thus making it a psychological/crime thriller. The sub genres was inpsired from the film "Disturbia", a film that focuses on the perception of an individual which is considered as unreliable from other characters in the film. It includes a serial killer that is identified as innocent. Our film focuses on the portrayal of an individual and how they are perceived through the connotations that surrounds them. We hope that our thriller opening would leave the audience open minded yet confused about the plot of the film. 

Our title sequence of the credits and editing was inspired by the film "Mezrine". The film opening used split screens with the credits running along side the splits screens in the opening. The film opening was simple but effective as opposed to other film openings. It was different as it contained heavy editing while also having a narrative opening that didn't give to much of the plot away.


A film that inspired our narrative opening would have to be "Trainspotting", it uses a male running throughout the start which is how our narrative opening will start.

PLANNING - How our initial ideas have change? 28/01/13

We have been developing our thriller opening today and have changed a few of our initial idea. One of the main issues we had with our story was that we wanted to use a house/car for the woman to be going to with her shopping. However, in order to do this, we would need a house that we could use in the area or our own car. As this isn't possible, we changed our idea slightly. The woman would lead the man to an alley way, towards her house, but the house itself would not be used in the opening scene. Instead, the location would be a park and an alley way. Some ideas for the location so far include Brick Lane and Victoria Park.

We have started creating a storyboard for the opening and decided that cross-cuts would be a useful way of showing that both characters will interact with eachother.

Our rough storyboard.

We also discussed the character of the man in our thriller opening and his background story. We was going to have him as a criminal, running from a crime he had just committed, but we agreed that this may distract the attention too much from the elderly lady and may be confusing for the audience. We decided that he would be a jogger, going for a run in a local park, his accidentally collides with the lady while running and this is what causes him to help her with her shopping.

We still have not decided whether Layla's face will be seen at the end of the opening, we do not what the film's plot to be revealed however, it is important that the audience understands that the woman was disguised. We may try different shots to see what would work best, for example, Layla may drop some of her disguise or may walk faster showing that she is more physically capable than she first appeared to be.

As for characters, we are still having Layla play our main character; the elderly lady. The other character will need to be a man, however Ami would prefer to focus on filming so Emma will look to find some people who wouldn't mind being in the thriller opening. 

PLANNING - 31/01/2013: Storyboard, Cast, Production Schedule.

Today we focused on planning our pitch which will be on Monday. Using a rough storyboard we had come up with last week, we took some images in Owen's Field and added them to a storyboard using QuarkXPress on the computers. Although we took the images in Owen's Field, we will actually be filming in a different location.

We had decided that Layla would play the old woman in our thriller and I spoke to a friend who agreed to be the jogger. As he was not with us today, Ami played to jogger for our storyboard. We didn't have any of the props we will have while filming so we used Ami's bag for the shopping bags, a stick as a walking stick and we covered Layla's face using her hood.

After showing Rebecca our storyboard, she made some suggestions that may help the audience to understand the storyline more clearly. She thought that the old lady should purposely drop her walking stick (rather than being knocked by the jogger) this will mean that the lady doesn't have a clear motive for the murder. We could also have a voice over after the jogger is killed that is a detective speaking about a series of murders he is trying to solve. This will make the audience aware of the storyline. Also, before the shot of the runner, there should be a long shot of him so that we are not immediately introduced to him.

We had to decided on a day to film, we wanted to film during the evening but I am busy next weekend and Nyomi is busy on Sunday's. On Wednesday evening, Ami is busy, this means that we will have to film on a weekday evening (providing we all bring back our signed forms from our parents). We are hoping to film on February 4th/5th, I am just waiting for Ben to reply to confirm that he is free as he is going to be our other actor.

We have also split our work for the pitch evenly so we all have some information to prepare for Monday's lesson, I will put all of the work together on a Prezzi and we will go over this before lesson so that we are fully prepared.