Due to events out of our control which occurred today we weren't able to film the church scene. Instead we are filming it tomorrow afternoon and are filming this car scene in the morning as planned.
Saturday, 28 February 2015
Non-Diegetic Sounds for the Church Scene
Pip spent a long time the other day successfully
experimenting with royalty and copyright free sounds from freesound.org to
create a soundtrack for the church scene.
She played around with sounds of church bells, birds tweeting, talking,
laughter, champagne classes clinking, creaking floorboards and screaming with
the aim to create a mock-up of the non-diegetic sounds we would add to the
scene in post-production. However, we
all agreed that the soundtrack she created was so successful that we shall use
it for the church scene, with the exception of the scream as we felt it wasn’t very
realistic. We also need to add in more sounds of guests talking and background noises as the bride walks up the stairs as it feels quite bare at the moment.
The sequence begins with wedding church
bells, with sounds of birds tweeting in the background order to give a
realistic feeling of the outside. Next
are sounds of the guests cheering to co-inside with the bride and groom walking
out of the church; as well as an ongoing track of people talking to create the
ambience of guests surrounding the newlyweds. Afterwards, Pip added in the sound of
glasses clinking together to match the visual of the champagne glasses. The wedding bells are then faded out using
the transition of someone making a toast with their glass. This is when the
one-bell chime is introduced, with an aim to build up the tension leading
up to the murder.
The sound
of footsteps going up wooden stairs has then been overlaid, which the
purpose again to build up suspense and apprehension.
Next, there is a sound of floorboards
creaking, suggesting the bride is now at the top of the stairs before then the
sound of a woman screaming interrupts as she sees her husband holding a
blood-covered knife. The loud sound of
the bell chime brings in the title screen.
Cast, Costumes and Props
I have created this presentation showing the cast, costumes and props for the church and car scenes we are filming this weekend.
Friday, 27 February 2015
Filming the Church and Car Scenes
This weekend we are filming the church and car scenes.
On Saturday 28th we will be filming the church scene in the afternoon and Pip has managed to get us St Mary's Church in Hadlow to ourselves for that time. Now I have finished storyboarding, it has become clear that continuity in this scene is not a large issue or concern due to the choppy and dream-like reflective shots.
On Sunday 29th we will film the car scene which follows the bedroom scene we have already filmed and edited. In the scene the protagonist will leave her house (Hadlow Tower) and walk over to a waiting car. Her chauffeur will help her into the car before the camera zooms in on the wing mirror to show the protagonists abusive and estranged husband standing in the background.
On Saturday 28th we will be filming the church scene in the afternoon and Pip has managed to get us St Mary's Church in Hadlow to ourselves for that time. Now I have finished storyboarding, it has become clear that continuity in this scene is not a large issue or concern due to the choppy and dream-like reflective shots.
On Sunday 29th we will film the car scene which follows the bedroom scene we have already filmed and edited. In the scene the protagonist will leave her house (Hadlow Tower) and walk over to a waiting car. Her chauffeur will help her into the car before the camera zooms in on the wing mirror to show the protagonists abusive and estranged husband standing in the background.
Iconic Director of the Film Noir Genre
Bella has created this emaze presentation on the well regarded director Fritz Lang who is credited with innovating our chosen genre of Film Noir.
Sunday, 15 February 2015
History of Film Noir and Audience Expectations
The genre 'Film Noir' is used to portray 'cynical attitudes and sexual motives'. It is mainly a mixture of romance and crime, however we have decided to give it a modern twist and add in a thriller element and only have a small amount of romance, some of which is shown in the new wedding scene.
Film Noir's peaked in the 1940s and 1950s, some having been famously directed by the likes of Fritz Lang, Alfred Hitchcock and many others. Here is an example of what a Film Noir genre trailer looks like. It is Fritz Lang's piece 'The Woman in the Window' 1944:
Here is some information on the history of the film noir genre from the website www.filmsite.org:
'A wide range of [film noir] films reflected the resultant tensions and insecurities of the time period, and counter-balanced the optimism of Hollywood's musicals and comedies. Fear, mistrust, bleakness, loss of innocence, despair and paranoia are readily evident in noir, reflecting the 'chilly' Cold War period when the threat of nuclear annihilation was ever-present. The criminal, violent, misogynistic, hard-boiled, or greedy perspectives of anti-heroes in film noir were a metaphoric symptom of society's evils, with a strong undercurrent of moral conflict, purposelessness and sense of injustice. There were rarely happy or optimistic endings in noirs.' It goes on to say how Film Noir is, strictly speaking, not a genre: '...but rather the mood, style, point-of-view, or tone of a film.'
Here is a clip from a BBC documentary about film noir and the rules associated with it:
Bella also created our SurveyMonkey questionnaire in order for us to find out what our target audience thinks are the conventions of a Film Noir.
Film Noir's peaked in the 1940s and 1950s, some having been famously directed by the likes of Fritz Lang, Alfred Hitchcock and many others. Here is an example of what a Film Noir genre trailer looks like. It is Fritz Lang's piece 'The Woman in the Window' 1944:
Here is some information on the history of the film noir genre from the website www.filmsite.org:
'A wide range of [film noir] films reflected the resultant tensions and insecurities of the time period, and counter-balanced the optimism of Hollywood's musicals and comedies. Fear, mistrust, bleakness, loss of innocence, despair and paranoia are readily evident in noir, reflecting the 'chilly' Cold War period when the threat of nuclear annihilation was ever-present. The criminal, violent, misogynistic, hard-boiled, or greedy perspectives of anti-heroes in film noir were a metaphoric symptom of society's evils, with a strong undercurrent of moral conflict, purposelessness and sense of injustice. There were rarely happy or optimistic endings in noirs.' It goes on to say how Film Noir is, strictly speaking, not a genre: '...but rather the mood, style, point-of-view, or tone of a film.'
Here is a clip from a BBC documentary about film noir and the rules associated with it:
Bella also created our SurveyMonkey questionnaire in order for us to find out what our target audience thinks are the conventions of a Film Noir.
Our survey was biased due to the ratio of women to men and the fairly unvaried age group that participated. However the results are still useful and have proved that our film uses almost all of the conventions that the audience expects from a Film Noir.
Half of the participants had seen a Film Noir before, indicating that although unusual it is a fairly popular genre and we do have a target audience.
Inspiration for our new opening narrative
We decided to change the original planned ending to our film opening as we felt a flash back and then another scene in the present would add more gravitas to the plot line and significance of the ring. We have therefore decided to add a scene of the protagonist's wedding and then also a scene in the present in which the protagonist leaves her house to go the party.
Here, Pip and I have created a visual and audio moodboard showing our current thoughts and feelings for what the church scene may look and feel like. As the church scene is a flash back we felt the etherial quality of Lana Del Rey's music videos Ultraviolence and Born to Die, with the audio of her song Young and Beautiful has the feel we're going for.
Here, Pip and I have created a visual and audio moodboard showing our current thoughts and feelings for what the church scene may look and feel like. As the church scene is a flash back we felt the etherial quality of Lana Del Rey's music videos Ultraviolence and Born to Die, with the audio of her song Young and Beautiful has the feel we're going for.
Editing the Bedroom Scene
During our filming, we filmed every shot at least twice to ensure that in post-production editing, we could choose the best shot to ensure our film opening is to the highest possible quality. We had no technical issues when we filmed, however when it came to uploading the footage onto iMovie we faced a problem- the camera only films in the formats MXF and MP4, neither of which are compatible with iMovie.
Bella spent lots of time researching and downloading programmes from the internet, and tried ones such as VLC and Aiseesoft, but they didn't work because they lost the high quality, which is why we wanted to film on the Canon XF205 in the first place. Bella managed to find a conversion software from the App store called Prism, it was free and converted the MXF files in a high quality to MOV files.
Over the last couple of weeks since filming we have spent much time editing this part of our opening. We are happy with the editing now however still need to find non-diegetic music to insert over the footage. We are planning to film the rest of our film opening this coming week so we can edit at school once we come back after the half-term.
Bella spent lots of time researching and downloading programmes from the internet, and tried ones such as VLC and Aiseesoft, but they didn't work because they lost the high quality, which is why we wanted to film on the Canon XF205 in the first place. Bella managed to find a conversion software from the App store called Prism, it was free and converted the MXF files in a high quality to MOV files.
Over the last couple of weeks since filming we have spent much time editing this part of our opening. We are happy with the editing now however still need to find non-diegetic music to insert over the footage. We are planning to film the rest of our film opening this coming week so we can edit at school once we come back after the half-term.
Filming Schedule
We will have to film over the course of 3 days, as we have three sections to film; the bedroom scene, the church/wedding scene and the car scene.
We will be using a Canon X205 to film our film opening which has brilliant quality and the exposure, zoom and focus can be done manually or no, depending on the scene.
Filming Schedule for part 1 - Sunday 1st February 2015
10:30 - 12:00 Our actress will arrive at Pip's house, where she showed her the test shoot so she has an idea of what our visions are. She will also have the time to style her 1920's hair and makeup.
12:00-12:30 Lunch
12:30 Bella and I arrive
12:45-1:45 Set up the room (mis-en-scene)
1:45-2:00 Shots of our actress with clothes/hair/makeup doneShots of the room and props
2:00-3:00 Filming begins
3:00-3:15 Break
3:15-4:00 Carry on Filming
4:00-4:30 Contingency time
4:30-5:00 Tidy up room
We will be using a Canon X205 to film our film opening which has brilliant quality and the exposure, zoom and focus can be done manually or no, depending on the scene.
Filming Schedule for part 1 - Sunday 1st February 2015
10:30 - 12:00 Our actress will arrive at Pip's house, where she showed her the test shoot so she has an idea of what our visions are. She will also have the time to style her 1920's hair and makeup.
12:00-12:30 Lunch
12:30 Bella and I arrive
12:45-1:45 Set up the room (mis-en-scene)
1:45-2:00 Shots of our actress with clothes/hair/makeup doneShots of the room and props
2:00-3:00 Filming begins
3:00-3:15 Break
3:15-4:00 Carry on Filming
4:00-4:30 Contingency time
4:30-5:00 Tidy up room
Model Release Form
We need our actress and her parents to sign this 'model release form' as our actress, Iona, is under the age of 18. This is especially important as our film opening will be available online and we need to ensure that nothing is shown that is not approved of by the actress and her parents.
Monday, 2 February 2015
Iconic Sounds Associated with our Genre
Here are some examples, which Bella kindly put together, of what you would expect to hear in a crime investigation/thriller genre, with a twist of a 1920s theme:
Editing the Test Shoot
Pip kindly made this Emaze presentation showing the process we went through when editing the test shoot.
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