Friday 8th April

Today, me and my tutor re-filmed the shots where there were originally errors on. This time, we kept the actor's (Anthony) head in shot whereas originally it was cut off in various places (not literally though). For the death scene, I got Anthony to cough to give the viewers the impression that he was being asphixiated (iMovie does not have a gas sound effect) by some kind of poisonous gas whereas in the original cut he did not show any signs of the death I intended for the character. I was also able to use some shots (from my point of view) I filmed yesterday in the college grounds to give the impression to the viewer that either:

• The person entering the room was running towards the house


• The dead person had been running away from something prior to being killed

The music was also edited since I thought the slow moving music played over the first shots of the original cut did not go with the running shots (I moved that track along and used it in the later scenes). However one of my tutors did not agree about the music because she felt that the music score was repeating itself rather than contrasting like in the original cut.

Editing

Positives - I worked well on creating the opening titles due to my knowledge of how they're set out and despite the fact that the iMovie title creater was very minimalist in the sense of how you want them to move or look.

Negatives - According to one of my tutors, one of the negative points of my media piece was the actual framing of it. The tutor claimed that the camera was too close and the head was cut off in various places when in others it was visible (that was solved through editing). Another problem I had was the sound in the movie, finding non-copyrighted music that is film-noir sounding in iMovie is a very difficult thing so I ended up using noises from the sound effects section that matched the atmosphere of my media piece.

Post Production

Tuesday 22nd March - Today my tutors observed the first draft of my production. It was suggested that it should not all be in monochrome. I pointed out that the sound track wasn't completely finished (it's not easy finding music that doesn't have copyright laws on them). Also some of the framing and lighting needed amending. It was agreed that I should refilm parts of the film to improve shot composition and some of the lighting and find some music that was not copyrighted and sounded less cliched than the iMovie sound effects. Friday 25th March - The post 16 student that is my main actor was unattainable for refilming so I decided that the best course of action would be to research and find suitable music for my soundtrack. After experimenting a little with 'Garageband' I talked with my tutor about other suitable music and he suggested using early 2oth cent composers. I eventually chose 'Music for Two Pianos' by Bela Bartok and music for 'prepared piano' by John Cage which I felt matched the mood of my media piece better than the iMovie sound effects.

Filming Log

Friday 11th March - Filming commenced up in the attic where I filmed the first three shots of the movie (shots of the door). I also began work on editing the film by adding in the first three shots described in my shot list and started adding in the opening credits (which are hard to do since iMovie is sort of the Apple equivalent of Windows Movie Maker (you just have to use what's there)). Tuesday 15th March - I had to risk-assess filming in the attic because of some loose floorboards and excessive dust. Eventually one of the tutors gave me permission to film up there. I had had some difficulties at first with a student actor who wasn't reliable and therefore chose another student (a Year 13 student named Anthony who had some free time during my lessons)). Filming of shots 4 through 9 went well despite the fact that Tony couldn't be there for long due to the fact he had to drop someone off at the station. The shots were then uploaded into the iMac and converted into monochrome since when you think film-noir, you always associate it with black and white cinematography. Friday 18th - Filming completed, though changes had to be made due to the fact that I had some difficulties getting hold of a fake pistol (my original idea), so I decided to change the person's fate to being gassed. I then continues with the rest of the editing. Due to the lack of film-noir sounding music in iMovie (I wouldn't recommend it as an editing program), I had to rely on the use of sound effects that I felt matched the mood of the film-noir genre and had to cut the movie down to match the two minute limit (although I did exceed the limit by 4 seconds).

Filming Schedule

Where I will be filming - The attic of College (reason - it's local and has the look that I need for the setting of this media piece in the sense that no-one goes up there and it has the sort of dark, empty foreboding look as described in my screenplay)

Who will be acting - Two volunteers

Tuesday 8th March 2011 - Filming in the attic of College
Friday 11th - Filming in the attic of College

Tuesday 16th - Filming in the attic
Friday 19th - Filming in the attic

Tuesday 22nd - Editing the finished film
Friday 25th - Editing the finished film

Tuesday 29th - Editing the film
Friday 2nd April - Editing the film

Tuesday 5th - Editing
Friday 8th - Editing

Tuesday 12th - Begin evaluation and complete for 3rd May 2011.

Costume/Props List

Suit (Black)
Costume for the corpse (depends what the actor's wearing)
Table and chairs
Small black book
Fake pistol - Unable to attain
Notebook
Pen
Food colouring and cornflour - Fake blood
Hat (fedora)

Moodboard

Shadows - A common feature in the film-noir genre

A murder is a common device that drives the plot of a movie in the genre of film-noir.

These are examples from other film-noir movie which I have drawn inspiration from for my media piece

This is a key element I aim to achieve in my media piece

Screenplay for 2 min opening

MEMOIRE

By Jack Monaghan

INT. CORRIDOR

We fade up on a door at the end of a long, white corridor. What is it? What significance does it have on an average human being? These are the questions running through the head of an individual walking slowly towards the door (from his POV). Upon reaching it, he places his hand on the doorknob, turns it and enters the room.

CUT TO:

INT. THE ROOM

The person stands behind the door (which has just closed behind him) and surveys the white, windowless room he stands in. Nothing to unusual stands in the room, just a chest of drawers in one corner and a table and chair in the other. But something then catches the person's eye, and shockingly we see that it is a dead person lying next to a wall, his face stained in blood.

Out of curiosity, the person walks slowly towards the body. Upon reaching it, he stops and looks at it as if examining it. He then procedes to take out a notebook and a pen and make notes about the body. Now and again he looks into its dead, lifeless eyes as he writes.

Once he finishes his notes, his attention then turns to the chest of drawers in the corner. We track alongside him as he wanders over to the chest of drawers. He then, upon reaching the drawers, opens the top drawer to see what's inside. From his POV, we can see that there is nothing in the drawer but a full ream of paper and a dead fly. Upon opening the second drawer, something catches the person's eye. He reaches in and we see that it is a small black book. Assuming it's something to do with the dead body near the wall.

From his POV, we can see that the book's pages contain a long list of various people's names. The person just stands there confused and without a lead or clue to what this.

PERSON

What does all this mean?

Suddenly the sound of a door creaking open catches the person's attention. We then see the barrell of a revolver poking through the gap in the door intercut with the part shocked, part alarmed look on the person's face.

BANG! The gun goes off and the person collapses on the floor dead. A voice is then heard over an intercom-like system.

VOICE

Unwanted memory, erased. Please clear the erasion room.

We then get one final glimpse of the room before we cut to black and go into the opening credits.

Storyboard

These are the images of my storyboard for my 2 minute opening:

Synopsis for the film containing my opening

Title - Memoire

What actually goes on in the human mind on a daily basis? Well for the mind controller G.F Woodward, it's just the job of 'eliminating bad memories and keeping the brain in order'. Until one day...

Characters

G.F Woodward
Akira Niijang
The Boss
Miss Clockwork
A.M Nesia
The Erasers
The two Erasion Room victims

Tuesday 1st February

Today, we planned out what our two minute openings we will create. My plan is to have it as either a film noir (a genre I am doing for my five minute film piece in Moving Image Arts), a Hitchock-style thriller or both. Three films that I have seen in these genres, and could draw inspiration from, are 'Chinatown' (1974), 'The Usual Suspects' (1995) and LA Confidential. I intend to work independently so for actors, I will need to find volunteers with theese qualifications:

• Must be skilled in Drama
• Must have Tuesday afternoons and Friday mornings off
• Must be local to this area
• Be familiar with the type of genre I have in mind

For the selection of mise-en-scene, I will be experimenting with low-key lighting and monochrome cinematography. I will also try my hand at experimenting with a variety of camera shots, including improved panning and over the shoulder shots (OTS shots are hard, in my opinion, to pull off since it's hard to keep the tripod steady), and varied shot transitions.

Tuesday 18th January 2011 - Main Task

Mr. O'Hara showed us four various title sequence in preperation for our main task (to create a short openning to a made-up film) which included '8 1/2' (dir. Federico Fellini), 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang' (dir. Shane Black), 'Layer Cake' (dir. Matthew Vaughn) and 'Se7en' (dir. David Fincher). Part of the main task also involves researching three film opennings of various movies, my Empire Film Guide has a list of the 'Top 10 Openning Credit sequences' so I will be using that for my research (I have already chosen two, I just need to choose a third).