Reflection – Charlotte's Media

Changes Made Throughout The Task

In this blog I am going to be talking about the changes that I made from the very beginning of production and how my idea and film developed from my proposal to the final piece.

From my proposal I have kept the basis of my story the same, it is still a film set after Snow White wakes up. At the time of writing my proposal I didn’t know if I was going to kill of the girl but in the end decided I would. In the proposal I said that the guy would take off his coat and put it on the girl but I also decided against this idea. In my proposal I state that I wanted to use Nuvole Bianche by Ludovico Einaudi but after some further research I found the piece Fairy Tale (skazka), Op. 29 by Rimsky-Korsakov and knew I could fit this in way better.

Looking at my story board here are all of the bits of foley I didn’t include. I decided to not add in any foley as when I was editing the music to the film it wasn’t as simple as just putting the track under my film and using it as background noise. I decided that I could use the music to tell the story and help make the narrative flow. This meant I had the long task of listening through a 15 minute track and cutting out all the bits of music I thought would fit in. Then I had to place all these broken up pieces to the footage, kind of like a puzzle. Once I had the main bits fitting the footage I had to fill in the gaps with the quieter parts of the piece and then I had to make sure my transitions were smooth so that it flowed and didn’t sound ‘lumpy’

On the story board I was meant to film this scene, but apparently I didn’t, luckily it wasn’t too necessary as you get the idea that he leaves.

During editing I decided to take this frame out as Toby wasn’t the best actor and having this close up emphasised this fact.

The frames that I have downloaded on here have gone out-of-order but I’m just talking about each frame so this doesn’t matter too much.

The beginning is filled with establishing shots of the woods. In this frame I wanted to achieve one-point perspective.

I added these titles to help break up the nature scenes that could have seemed dull.

I turned this shot upside down to create a weird tone, it feels un-natural which foreshadows that something bad will happen.

I learnt how to blur a background and focus on a certain area so I wanted to add some of these artistic shots in to establish my setting.

Here I introduced the basics of the narrative just so that the audience are sure that it is roughly based on Snow White.

Here is another one-point perspective shot. I turned it upside down to continue the unnatural tone. This shot was a bit un-stabalised when I filmed it so I had to stabilise it in editing, I don’t really like relying on this feature as it makes the film look weird.

I think this title adds some tension.

I did more establishing shots than planned because I got some inspiration to do some upside down shots and wanted to do some artistic shots as well to show my camera skills.

Filming with a dog is a lot harder than you think. Sometimes Toby would wander off and we had some continuity issues with balls as Toby kept chewing through them meaning we had to introduce another one it.

In this frame we had to throw a ball to make toby run over unfortunately you can see the ball land but in get the effect I wanted so it’s not a massive issue.

I quite like this shot as I think it looks aesthetically good, I also like how it ties in the snow-white theme and makes it clear.

Toby isn’t where I want him in this scene but it had to do.

Toby’s hood isn’t straight here and that is quite annoying.

Here I tried to achieve one-point perspective again.

This scene is annoying as the human Toby doesn’t put his hand in the correct place.

This scene was difficult to get as we had to get Toby walking in the correct direction, this was meant to be a POV shot but I decided not to do that as it was difficult enough to control the dog.

I think I should have shot this shot from Toby’s head not his shoulder.

I had to add in this shot of Toby’s face just to get the idea that he is looking at her.

Toby picks Esther up really awkwardly here.

One-point perspective.

Here I tried to achieve symmetry.

One-point perspective and symmetry.

Kubrick is famous for tracking shots and I tried to achieve this in my walking up the stair scenes.

When editing the music for this scene I by accident pasted in something else multiple times and just by chance it happened to work here. I also continue the upside down theme here.

Here I was going to have her saying “Hello” but after a bit of feedback from Elena and Liv I decided not to add it in and instead have her still looking at the door way to build suspense.

One-point perspective and symmetry.

Here I continue my tracking shots inspired by Kubrick. One big mise en scene issue is that I forgot to remove a Toy Story poster and this ruins the shot.

This shot isn’t straight.

I think this shot is really creepy and the red wall helps intensify this.

One-point perspective and symmetry… If it was straight.

I tried to achieve one-point perspective but I didn’t have enough room to achieve the full effect.

This shot emphasises her being locked in.

I tried to achieve symmetry in this shot.

Symmetry.

Here I change the colour of the to emphasise the stab and shock the audience. I think it created a weird un-natural vibe.

I felt that zooming in at this point made it more dramatic.

A Talk with Nick on Proposals

How Filming Went

Before I was filming I was so stressed out as I had so much to do work wise. I thought there was no way I could be prepared for filming by the weekend. However, I stayed in college till 18:30 one evening and completed all my work for the filming on Saturday.

Wednesday evening I realised that Mother’s Day was on Sunday- the day I originally wanted to film on- so I had to ask my actors if they could do Saturday instead. Esther was fine but Sam couldn’t as he finished work at 14:00 which would have been too late to start filming. Instead I asked Toby and he said yes, what a life saver!

And then… I saw the weather forecast for the weekend and almost cried. It said there was a 70% chance of rain on the Thursday morning. This was going to be a problem because the whole beginning of my film is set outside in a woods. Therefore I had to come up with a plan B which was if the weather wasn’t too bad I would take an umbrella to keep the equipment dry and try to keep all the scenes under the trees where the rain struggles to get through. If the weather was awful then I would have to film inside just so I have footage to edit and can create a finished film.

On the Saturday morning I checked the weather and it had a 40% chance of rain and when I looked out the window I saw blue sky so to whatever higher power there is THANK YOU!!! This meant I could film outside in my chosen wooded location. But this is where I encountered another problem, I could’t carry all my equipment to location by myself so I had to go wake my 14 year old brother up and rope him into being a runner for the day (a money bribe may have been involved).

We arrived at location 10 minutes early so we got all set up and started filming. We also ended out finishing early and finished at 11:22 which was 28 minutes earlier than planned. Once we got to location 2 (my house) we had a longer lunch break than planned but we had worked really hard and deserved it. So we started filming at 13:00 which is the same time that I had planned. We then filmed and finished at roughly 15:00 which is earlier than planned but we then spent another 30 minutes re-watching all the footage on my laptop, mainly to see all the stupid things that happened on set.

One thing I will take from this experience is that I am so glad I had such a detailed story board as it meant I knew exactly what I was doing for each scene. This made filming really easy and have a good flow.

I was really thankful that my actors were so easy to work with and because they are old school friends we had a laugh during the process. I know this wouldn’t happen that much in the industry but it just made me less stressed and I enjoyed filming.

Set Design

Here are my before and after pictures of my set design in my house. I had to do this because everything that is in the frame has a purpose and meaning. By taking out the items that make a room personal to someone I think I created this weird place that seems unsettling

Snow White’s Costume Selection

For Snow White’s costume I knew I wanted her to be wearing a dress at the beginning. I wanted the beginning of the film to match the fairy tale atmosphere the classic story creates. So I told Esther to send me a few pictures of her in different dresses so here is the selection of dresses and why I didn’t choose them and why I did choose the one I did:

I didn’t choose this dress as it looks too modern and it is the wrong colour, I felt that it would blend into the forest too much.

This t-shirt dress was too casual.

This dress has a good length but I wasn’t too keen on the stripes.

I liked this dress but the one that I chose in the end was better than it.

I liked this dress and chose this dress because the silk material and the colour look whimsical and matched the design I was going for. I would have preferred it being longer but it worked out in the end. I also told her to put on a long sleeved top as it was a bit chilly that day and as a health and safety risk.

The colour of the dress was too bright and not what I was looking for.

Feedback On My Film So Far

Elena- during rough cut edit stage where the clips are in the correct order – Toby lets the film down, he doesn’t seem menacing enough and looks younger than Esther. Try and take him out of the film as much as possible. Esther seems to be a very good actor.

Mark- during first draft stage where music is almost fully edited- It is good, he then goes on to tell me what he thinks the narrative of the story is which is really helpful as it helps me to see if I need to add in anything to make the story understandable. He said I should edit the stabbing scene so that it is longer and maybe change the colour, he said to play around to see what works and what doesn’t, it is the only way to be creative.

Liv-during first draft stage where music is almost fully edited and transitions are added in- She says to get rid of the dialogue if I am not going to put any foley in then I should take the dialogue out and put titles in instead it breaks up the music and sounds weird.

Elena- during final feedback till exporting the film- Toby’s costume at the beginning of the film has Jack Wills written on it in big writing this is not good I should have put more thought into his costume not just Esther’s. During walking scene towards the door you can see a Toy Story poster, re film this scene if possible. In relation to Liv’s point of the dialogue get rid of the “Hello” and keep the “No” ‘s. She pointed out Toby again, unfortunately I can’t take him out of it anymore than I have. Toby was my safe option as I knew he could film that day and I knew Esther would be comfortable acting with him, because of this I sacrificed my film. There is a music jump which I know about and need to sort out. However the message is really clear and Elena likes the idea of the film.

Elena and I then went on to talk about the context of my film.

Pressures for women to say yes.
The ‘me too’ movement and how this film is MY voice for the movement.

My next steps are too finalise my edit and do more research into the ‘me too’ movement.

Full Metal Jacket VS Hacksaw Ridge

Last weekend I was sitting with my family having family movie time, the film we chose was Hacksaw Ridge, directed by Mel Gibson. Firstly I loved the movie the CGI of the bombs was a bit meh but I couldn’t fault it anywhere else.

The biggest reason why I am writing this post is because; as I was watching it I noticed a lot of the scenes reminded me of Full Metal Jacket. So not only does this link in with my current unit but also made me feel like a film boff! so here are a few scenes I noticed to be very similar:

The obstacle course.

The room scene where they are standing by there beds and their leader is calling them names and shouting abuse.

The beating scene as punishment for being weak.

The rifle lesson.

Marching and chanting.

Editing Stages

Here is my rough cut (12/03/18). All I have done here is put my clips into the order they need to be in, my next step is to cut the clips down to where they need to be. I do this at the very beginning of editing because it makes the editing process a lot easier for me as it means I’m not scrolling through all my footage searching for the right clip. It also means I can see the narrative partially play out and decide if I need to change anything to help the story line flow better.

This morning (13/03/18) I finished cutting all my frames to where they need to start and finish. My next steps are to line up my audio, add my music, add any foley sounds, add transitions and add titles. I do all this fluff near the end of the editing stages as they are the final touches to make the film a film. If you do this at the beginning not only are you waiting for your work to render but you also end out wasting more time changing the details. The part of editing where you are just cutting down your clips can be tedious but once you have done it the fun begins!

Here I have edited my dialogue in and I have added my music. This is all one piece (Rimsky-Korsakov – Fairy Tale (skazka), Op. 29) just cut up and moved around to suit the tone of the scene. I have decided that the music fills in the spaces where I would have used foley, therefore I am not going to be adding in any more foley. My final task before exporting my film is to add titles and credits.

Here I have added in the titles and transitions:

Now I am waiting for Elena to look at it and if there are any changes I should make I will make them, then I will be finished.

Snow Day

On Tuesday the 27th of February 2018 the UK was hit by storm Emma which has lead to some of the worst snowfall in 50 years. As the UK doesn’t get snow enough we always get into a wreck and the world comes to a halt! Therefore on Tuesday and Wednesday morning my buses were cancelled and so were most of the trains. Side note, my buses did start up again later on in the day but if I risked getting on one I could have quite possibly died as a double decker 410 bus tipped over. Frankly I see the safer option of staying at home and ruining my perfect attendance far more appealing than risking my life. At least I did work at home. Right?

Fin has no regard for my pictures! I’m joking!

After doing some work at home I needed a break anddddd the snow was calling me, so we went out into the cold. The original plan was to go to Pains Hill to take Nathan (my little brother) sledging but as you can see in the pictures it started snowing quite heavily, this caused us to become human icicles and Fin and I wear glasses which meant we basically blind as the lenses were covered so we just took them off. Due to this Nathan didn’t get to sledge but I did get some pictures. The snow almost drenched Christian (my camera) but don’t worry he survived!!!

Fin questioning why I must take pictures of him

This snow flake had to fall at the wrong time!

Nathan yet again posing! But look at that lens blur

Fin telling me to stop taking pictures and to hurry the f**k up

25/02/18

Fin, Adam and I went to Knole which is a place owned by the National Trust. It was a really nice place and I got a few pictures whilst I was there. This helped me get experience in using my camera, but I also want do some filming in wooded/ natural places so practising now will help me out in the future.