Sound recording experience

On Sunday 29th October, my mum and I travelled to Cheltenham to spend a day in a recording studio called Yellow Shark. My mum had a day recording an audio book for The Robin of Sherwood series. This was really interesting as I spent the time in the recording studio, seeing how the studios operate in a professional environment.

Here are some pictures I took of the studio and the recording equipment.

Screen experiment

Once I filmed my preliminary task, I then filmed the additional parts of the phone screen afterwards. Firstly, using the new iPhone update I was able to record my screen taking a picture on snapchat and posting it, then scrolling through social media, liking different posts. I then recorded my phone on my camera and uploaded this to IMovie. However, I can't yet insert this onto my preliminary task as iMovie doesn't have the accessabilties. Here is my phone screen clips that I will insert into my preliminary task once I get to school and have final cut to use.

My Preliminary Task

Here is my preliminary task on the short film called "A Social Life". I chose this short film to remake as it raises similar issues as I will be portraying. I filmed this in my home with a Panasonic Lumix GX7 which has sharp quality. However, when I can to edit this I did it all on my MacBook but then it wouldn't upload,  I therefore had to send it over to my Apple Mac computer which lost quality definition. I have learnt from this that I will do all my editing on my Mac desktop to prevent this problem. This isn't my finished product as I will be editing to make the phone screen come up onto the screen so it shows us what my character is looking at on her phone.

Collage

I created this collage of four different short films that I am looking at for inspiration. I screen shot the main scenes in the clips so that I could put together all the ideas I like for my own short film. All of this short films have mental health issues in common, which is a topic I will be looking at. I have incorporated a variety of different shots that are close ups, mid shots, birds eye view and mirror reflecting shots. I would like to try and use as many different shots as possible to show my skills and to show the emotions of my character.

Key Conventions

Conventions of a Drama

1. Exhibits real life situations
2. A dramatic storyline to move the audience
3. Portrays a journey of the characters development
4. Audience can relate to characters situation
5. A structure of climaxes, anti-climaxes to help the audience emotionally connect with tension building
6. Drama can be interlaced with other genres such as comedy and tragedy

Drama films the break conventions

Titanic-

Titanic breaks conventions as it end sadly for the protagonist with a tragic death.

Plan of Action

At the weekend I will be filming my preliminary task basing it on the idea of  The Social Life short film. I will be filming 1 minute of it and capturing the scenes with the split screen of the phone showing on the screen. After I have filmed and edited all my work, I will used final cut to overlay the live screen on the picture. Final Cut is useful to use rather than iMovie as it has the accessibilities to cut out the picture and place it on top of the film.

Preliminary Exercise

I will be using this short film to do my preliminary film. I thought it was good as it looks at social media depression which is similar to my genre for my short film, looking at eating disorders. I will be using 1 minute of this clip to replicate the scene so I can practise different shots and mirror shots.
Here is my story board for my preliminary task.

Next I will be practising the split screen technique to show the phone screen on the shot. I want to learn how to do this, so that I can replicate this scene from the short film.

Award Winning short films

To gather more information for my short film, I researched 2 different drama short films that won awards. I did this so that I could see why they were so successful and the type of techniques the used to make there work as best as possible. I also looked at them so that I could gain more ideas for my work.
2016 Sofie Award Winners
Best Narrative to a short story

I couldn't find the full short story but I watched the trailer to get a taster of how the short story is.




Empty-
Award winning social realist drama as it follows Kiera, who struggles through day to day life, while suffering form effects of an eating disorder.
This short film was perfect research for me as I will be looking at girls who are living with an eating disorder too. I thought this short film was very well shot and had a moving storyline. I particularly liked the scene where she had voices repeating in her head as it really showed the audience what she's going through. I also liked the high pitch noise ringing in her ears. This became uncomfortable for the audience, making us empathise for her.
AWARDS:
Winner - Silver Dollar Film Festival 2016 - Best Series
Winner - Madhouse Movies Film Festival 2016 - Best Short Film
Winner - Texas Ultimate Shorts Film Festival 2017 - Best Drama Short




A Social Life
A Social Life is a short film about a career driven woman named Meredith who's living the life she's always dreamed of... online. Meredith strives to live a balanced life: staying fit, working hard and connecting with her friends; she is creating her "image" within her broader social media friend base. But she awakes one day and realizes that her reflection is merely the collection of photos that she has shared with others.
Awards- Canberra International Short Film Festival, where it was awarded the prize for Best International Actor and most recently has won Best Ladies First Short at the Lady Filmmakers Festival in Pacific Grove, CA

My Treatment

History Research

I have been looking at the history of short films from my chosen genre. My genre in my short film is going to be a drama as it will include the development of a realistic character dealing with emotional themes.

What is a short film?
Usually has a beginning, middle and end with a length of about 40 minuets.
They are normally low budget films by independent directors.
Short films aren't that popular anymore, however they are shown at film festivals and award ceremonies. They are often created form charity work to raise awareness, such as red nose day.

History:

Short films first began in 1910 in America. In the 1930s the short film began to decrease, however, in 1955 it become popular again due to a man named Charlie Chaplin making short comedy films. Disney then also started with short films such as For the Bird and The Lamp.

5 rules when writing a short film:

1. Keep it as short as possible
2. Make it visual
3. Find single movements
4. Find a story
5. Engage the audience

Music video inspiration

Here is a music video that has also inspired me with the dancing. I want to make a short film for my coursework, however, as I'm going with the idea of using a dancer, I want to incorporate a music element. I really liked this music video as it has a storyline to it which is quite depressive and abstract. I want my short film to be quite dark and sad, looking at mental issues that my character has to live with.





I also stumbled across this dance music video whilst researching. Sergri Polunin is a seriously talented dancer and makes this music video captivating and gripping. His setting is also perfect for this music video, he has room to travel and jump with enough space. The barn is light and has a lot of greenery around it making it a refreshing colourful. However, watching this made me realise and come to the conclusion that I will not be making a music video on a dance as to make it as professional as possible the dancer has to be at a high level of technique and talent, and I don't know anyone who would reach my expectations. I therefore will be looking at short films still having the dance theme but I want to look at the journey of a dancers lifestyle.

Short film Inspiration

I have been doing some research into short films and I found a previous students work who based their theme on a girl who is a dancer. I really love this idea and storyline and it has inspired me to create a short story about a dancer lifestyle. I also really like how this was a short story which also incorporated a music element which fitted well with the story line. I will be researching further into this theme to gain more inspiration for my work.

My First Lesson

In our first lesson of A2 coursework we looked at different clips from past students for their coursework. This gave me ideas for next years coursework and I have decided that I am interested in either a music video, short film or a film opening. It was very useful looking at past students work as it gave me an insight in what I am expected to do and it showed me the different ideas you can take. For example in a music video, different coloured light, studio space and background dancers.

Year 6 Induction Day

Yesterday, year 6's came into senior house for a year 7 induction day. There was lots of girls who came and they all each had a media class. They filmed themselves talking about their favourite hobbies, interests and about their selves. We then edited them all on IMovie with their chosen music and background. This was very good practise for me as we had a limited amount of time to do complete them. I also learnt new skills such as downloading music onto iTunes using a website converter. We did have some challenges on the way as the computer kept crashing and wouldn't upload, but in the end we manage to film off the computer and upload it. Even though it was time consuming at times it was very useful and fun.

Knole House Trip

Last Friday, the media class went to visit Knole House in Kent, a National Trust house with a large scale of grounds. This was a very interesting trip as the whole trip was a performance including our tour guide and we were taken through time through each room. It gave us a chance to learn about the heritage of the house and woman rights at the time. The house was owned by a women called Vita Sackville- West and her lover was a women named Virginia Woolf. After the tour and the performance we watched a film which was about Orlando who was the character in the book that Virginia Wolf wrote, which was a film was about gender identity. Overall, this was a very interesting and beautiful place to visit and at the same time we learned so much about the history behind the house, gender equality and the meaning behind gender as well as the media side with the film in the afternoon.

Work Experience

June 21, 2017

On the 12th June, I went to Pinewood Studios for a week for work experience. I worked with a company called Movietech which provides all camera equipment for commercials and big films such as Star Wars. In the week I was there I learnt valuable information about the different cameras, lens and how to test them and how to set them up. I made sure that I took pictures and recorded information about the different equipment so that I could look back on it. This week was especially useful for me as it ties in very well with my media A-level. I know that I feel more comfortable with cameras and I know the different cameras and lens used for different work. For example the phantom camera is used for very slow moving objects as this camera can slow a picture down by 1000 shot per second. This camera is very popular for adverts such as M&S, where milk is slowly poured. The Phantom is also used in documentaries such as Planet Earth where a shot of a cheetah running is slowed down.

These are a few pictures of some of the cameras and lens I used during the week.

New Post

Hi, welcome to my A2 blog
Enjoy