First Production Schedule

Here is our first production schedule. We had to make a second one after making the silly mistake of now focusing our camera when filming. This meant we had to make new dates, book the equipment, find an available date and re film. During this period, we chose to break up into two groups and film on different days to get our work done.

Date	Equipment Needed	Location	Main Props	Actions
Thursday 17th February Filming from 3.15pm – 4.30pm	Camera and TRIPOD. Booked for the day	College Roof	Mobile Phone and black costume.	Filming footage of two scene. One in the park, other one in Kaleighs room.
Saturday 19th February 2011 Filming from 11:00am – 4:00pm	Camera and TRIPOD. Booked from Friday 18th – Wednesday 23rd February	Epping Forest, Walthamstow Kaleighs house	Laptop Mobile Phone Picnic Basket Picnic food Bedroom (mise en scene)	Filming footage of two scene. One in the park, other one in Kaleighs room.
Monday 21st February filming from 11:00am – 4:00pm	Camera and Tripod	Hammersmith Starbucks or Coffee Shop Shephards Bush Train Station	Blackberry Hand bag, book Laptop	Filming footage of final two scenes. character at the train station and character in a coffee shop.
Tuesday  1st March 9:00am – 12:15pm	Video drive and memory cards	College	None.	Begin editing and reviewing footage.

Animatic Storyboard, Planning

This is the animatic of our storyboard that i made myself, it is different to the other one because i decided it's better if i made my video rather than using the same one as everyone else. This one is edited onn a program.

Production - The Wrongs

Whilst we are currently still in production for our thriller opening Foursquare we have been facing many problems when filming. One of the scenes we were shooting required using a laptop in a coffee shop and unfortunately we didn't have enough battery on our laptop and we were forced to relocate due to the poor train services. this means we have to alternate or film this part on another day which is putting us a little behind schedule. Also, we were unable to connect to the wireless Internet in the place of filming, and we needed the Internet for this specific scene. This made us decide to relocate in order to ensure we had a definite connection to the Internet.

We could of improved these things by thinking through our risks much more clearly and making sure we were more prepared such as our equipment being available and ensuring we can connect to the Internet whilst on the move. Other things that put us behind on schedule were fights on the bus which means it took longer to travel from place to place.

However, we are learning from our mistakes and when we will be filming the last and finishing touches of our thriller we will be making sure we are prepared properly and have thought through all the things that can go wrong. This means our filming will run smoother and we will be able to accomplish more done in a given time.



comments from Donna

Well done guys! Your shots of your first shooting day looks amazing! You are all up to date and have uploaded your pitch. (Sifan you are missing a few entries – please see me to arrange a workshop time). Thanks 

Donna

Production Schedule

A schedule for production is key, our group is determined not to make the same mistakes that we previously did. This time we decided it was crucial to make a table that we 100% have to stick to, below is what we have decided:

Date	Equipment Needed	Location	Main Props	Actions
Thursday 3rd March 2011	Camera and Tripod	College gardens	School back Blackberry Work folders	Filming girl in park.
Saturday 5thMarch 2011	Camera and Tripod. Booked from Friday 4th  March – Monday 7th March	Hammersmith Judith’s House Kensal Rise Station	Laptop Book, handbag, Mascara	Filming bedroom scene and train station scene.
Sunday 6thMarch 2011	Camera and Tripod	Kensal Rise Restaurant ‘The Diner’	Laptop and bag.	Filming one character in a coffee shop/restaurant.
Tuesday 8thMarch 2011	Camera and Tripod	College Garden	Work folders Blackberry	Re filming girl in park

Different Types of Shots

Whilst filming the first few shots of our thriller opening, FourSquare, we took various different shots, like the long shot, medium shot and close up.

We plan to use mainly match cuts because we want to create suspense though not showing the identity of the characters, so all we can show is their actions, like texting or typing.

EWS

WS

LS

MS

MCU

CU

ECU

 

  CUTAWAY                         

MATCH CUT

TWO SHOT

  

OVER THE SHOULDER SHOT                             

Our Production Schedule

Here is a picture of my copy of the production schedule for our thriller opening. We plan to film over the half term and then when we come back to college, start editing!

THE CHAIN MESSAGE

This is the centre piece of the whole film and what the opening revolves around. We researched different types of chain messages like ones that had gruesome things attached to them but we felt that would be a bit too much so we decided to keep it normal. The ones people normally receive which say things like send this on to a certain amount of people in a certain amount of minutes or something bad will happen to you, was the kind message we where after. We chose this kind of message because people usually ignore them so we thought we would exaggerate it a bit more by including the 'disappear from this world' element.  

You are like a four leaf clover;
Hard to find and lucky to have...
Send this to 15 people in 5 minutes.. or you will pay for what you did, yourcomputer, phone, laptop or whatever device you received this message on will turn off, and dissappear from this world like you...

Pitch Planning

We started pitching ideas in class and when we were definete on the story and everything else involved in the production of the movie we started to work on our actuall pitch, since we had already finished our storyboards we started to work on how the whole thing would go to plan on our pitch. me and Judith used our webcams to talk about what we were going to do for our pitch and we also completed the storyboard using my artistic skills to put it into action. Our pitch came out very well and we were done on time.

Filming Of Four Square

We filmed in a number of locations during our filming process, these are shots from the first day of filming. After going out and filming our shots we realised we did not like what we had filmed- once we saw it up on the big screen. The focus wasn't as clear as we wanted it to be and as the characters themselves tell the opening without words, then the focus is clearly very important. We had to then go out and film in similar locations making sure the focus was on what we needed it to be on... 

Storyboard Planning

I drew up all of the storyboards, the rest of my group told me what to draw and i drew it and then we wrote the screen directions. There are 7 pieces of paper in total and they took around 3 hours to complete fully.

THE MAKING OF FOURSQUARE DAY 1

Here are a few shots of our first day of filming. We are on the college roof and were shooting our opening scene. However, we have made some errors on our first day.

• We hadn't completely finished our production schedule so we were slightly unorganised
• We had forgotten our storyboard so we forgot some of our shots. This was quite time consuming as we had to do a wider range of shots just in case.

However, from this experience on our very first day we will ensure we always have our production schedules with us and list of things we need to bring so we don't forget anything and can use our time effectively.

Filming Sifan on the college roof, in this establishing shot we were inspired by Donnie Darko and felt it is a great opening to our Thriller as it sets the scene and creates the atmosphere. The audience will automatically know this Thriller is set in London and because the character is at such a high point will suggest his superiority and leadership in the film. Also. by opening with this shot we know that he is the main character.

Although we were doing work we had plenty of fun filming. It was good for us all to get a chance with the camera and coming up with new ideas as we went along. We were able to work around the weather and used to Sun as an advantage. In some shots the sun effectively darkened the image, making the character (Sifan) a silhouette which we thought looked really good!

Chain Mail: RESEARCH

So, the basis of our thriller is a chain mail which in future will actually come true. In our opening the main build of suspense comes from this chain mail, we researched many websites to find chain messages here are some sites below:


http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/deadgirl.html
http://www.bluedamage.com/2006/03/24/really-scary-chain-letters/


After researching for sometime we put together a number of chain messages to create our own unique message, which shows dramatic irony because our audience know this message is based upon an ex boyfriend making it clear that his ex girlfriends are being targeted, however these cynical girls ignore the message leaving our audience in suspense, below is our final message:


You are like a four leaf clover; 
Hard to find and lucky to have...
Send this to 15 people in 5 minutes.. or you will pay for what you did, yourcomputer, phone, laptop or whatever device you received this message on will turn off, and dissappear from this world like you...

Storyboard/Animatic

Here is our animatic of our storyboard for our final thriller movie.

The animatic includes the types of shots we will be using in order and is the basis of what we will be shooting our film by.

And here is a screen grab of us editing together our storyboard animatic using Final Cut Pro.

We will be using this programme when editing out final thriller opening.

Our Prezi Pitch

We had to pitch our thriller using either Microsoft power point or a website called Prezi. My group and I decided to test out Prezi instead of going for the traditional power point. I found it very interesting using Prezi because it was very different. I really liked how you could tilt the text at angles which made the pitch more entertaining to look at. Making this Prezi really made us think about our thriller in detail and has prepared us more and we feel more than ready to film.

FINAL PITCH!

We produced our pitch using 'PREZI', I really enjoyed using this software; it isn't as complex as it looks- bonus! The Prezi looks much more professional than an average power point so I am glad we experimented with this tool.

Here is our final Prezi which we pitched...

Our pitch went well there a few final details we have to add before we can start filming. Since we have already produced our storyboard and animatic we can start filming soon, in our piece a lot of editing is needed so we need to make sure we film well and we need to make sure we film each shot at least twice so that when it comes to editing we wont have to go out and re film.

THE PITCH

Once we were finished planning and 'story boarding' we had to start preparing for our pitch, our pitch is really important because its a chance for us to showcase our ideas and for others to see our goal. Here is a list of the 'MUST HAVES' for our pitch:

We have decided to use a 'PREZI' which for me, is a software I haven't used before so it's exciting to try out a new software to add to my media skills. We have 12 things we need to add to our pitch, we have to make sure it is in enough detail so people can see our vision and so we can start filming as soon as possible.