Glen Moving Image - Film Project on domestic violence Planning

Domestic Violence Film Project

Monday 6th October class

Me and my group have come up with some great ideas on domestic violence of a husband and wife fighting for our film project.

What we came up with so far is a story that we bullet pointed as the main and key points of this film. We put together a story where a little boy is neighbors with a couple that seem normal in the begining of the film as it slowly starts to reveal what is really going on behind closed doors of the house next door.

Although we seem to be getting somewhere with our ideas of a simple story, we are yet to find an x-factor to go with the ideas that we have already.

Wednesday 8th October class

Today pretty much all of my group attended the class lesson and together we came up with more and new ideas for the film.

this is what we have:

• Interview with victim talking about relationship while bruises appear on face.
• The same thing as above but the one hitting the victim receives bruises
• Split screen idea of two different families 
• We think keeping our footage and stuff inside the studio to save us the stress of finding places to film when it could be so simple and stay somewhere we have access to.
• We have x-factors now of the person hitting the victim in the face
• x-factor on the first idea we had of the child seeing the neighbors argue when really its his own house.

And thats pretty much it, all were doing from now on is trying to decide which one of the ideas above we would like to use and build on from there and it is most likely to be the interview idea in the studio, just dont know if its the male or the female being the victim.

Wednesday 15th October

We all decided to all work in one group on sexual abuse due to lack of communicating with each other on what we wanted to do and had no storyline.

The story we have is about a girl who decides to throw a party when her parents leave home through facebook. Then it leads to a boy coming over and something happens to her friend instead of her, well thats what we got :)

GAFFER

A gaffer in the motion picture industry and on a television crew is the head electrician, responsible for the execution (and sometimes the design) of the lighting plan for a production. The term gaffer originally related to the moving of overhead equipment to control lighting levels using a gaff.

My role in the new group is the gaffer, taking care of the lights. We are planning on filming this film in the day time but we want it to be based in the night so me and peter are going to get some black curtins or anything black enough to cover the windows to bring out that effect and also other different lighting effects for other scenes yet to plan.

This is a link from pinterest that explains how to use the lights, talks about backgrounds, reflectors and how to set up scenes in your room and i think it might help with this film project especially for in house scenes.

http://www.adorama.com/alc/0014279/article/Home-Studio-Lighting-Gear-For-Students


 Lights we have already that we can use for our scenes:

Lights

• Redheads
• kino's 
• blondes
• 6 stands
• 6 sandbags

Difusers

• black difuser
• gel (colored) 

What we might want to use:

•  DIY Lights
• strobe light
• Smoke machine 

 The reason why i think we might want to use these is because it would look really good for the party scene that we plan on doing because it brings out that party vibe along with the difusers to give it a night time party because we are most likely to be shooting everything in the day time.

 21 October 

Today i just researched on some lighting techniques trying to find examples of some good lighting techniques through youtube and taking screenshots of them to help with the party lighting idea and this shot looks really nice and i could try set up something like this to experiment with when i have the lights.

This is a screenshot i took of this New Zealand advert on drinking and driving called ghost chips and i liked the look of this shot because you can see the different types of lights in it and just to help me have an idea of what i could do to make the party scene seem like an actual party by using and setting up lights in the area where we are filming.

Wednesday 22nd October

This is another good example of some lighting techniques from the website http://nofilmschool.com/2014/09/case-study-lighting-commercials that i saw that is good for experimenting with and just getting ideas from due to my job as the gaffer it is my job to know these things and try my best to light the atmosphere the create a flawless shot no matter what the situation.
 

I found the diagram above very helpful because the way it has been drawn is very basic and easy to understand and its a good way to take an idea of a lighting plan and making it your own just by being creative even more.

I think this method could possibly work well in our film but instead of the sunlight beaming through the windows, we replace the sun light with some sort of black curtins or something dark to cover the light to illuminate and darken the house so we can set up the lights on the inside of the house to make it look like an actual house party at night.

 Lighting Techniques Tutorial

 

This is a lighting techniques tutorial video by Eve Hazelton that i found on pinterest that really helps you get the best techniques on how to diffuse and smoothen light and how to make a good lit shot without being exposed too much with harsh lights being shun on you.

Thursday 30th October

Well yesterdays class we talked about what kind of lighting techniques we could use for the scenes but we all do not know how to plan lighting because we dont know what the house looks like inside and out. Therefore we cannot do much with the lights at this stage but what Glen was telling us is that we should just worry about the lights and stuff on the actual day that we shoot the film, but instead just keep all of our ideas of lighting techniques and focus mainly on the shots that we think would suit the scenes with the script sheet Glen has given us and that it would be due back with all shots planned on MONDAY for everyone to discuss and pick out which shots we think is the best and choose to use for the scenes.

That was mainly what we did the whole class yesterday, oh and i almost forgot, we also discussed what shots and stuff would look good. Also discussed clothing aswell, we know that the walls of the house is white so therefore we cant have anyone wearing anything white because the light would beam out from them making it too bright so we thought of what color clothing we might want for people to wear while still keeping in mind the color pallet that we would have which we are still unsure of, aslong as its dark clothing i guess.

 Its been a bit since i've been on my blog but today is not a class day and i just have this spare time to do some more research on some color pallets to help out with the color of clothing and stuff people should wear and so it doesnt look off or too colorful?.

So apparently the 'PARTY SCENE' is the big scene that we mostly discuss in terms of lighting because its a much more bigger deal and it might be full so its not going to be just your average looking living room light on but there would have to be a multiple number of lights and diffusers and also using the color pallet to keep the  party to one specific look that would actually catch on to and know that the colors in the party scene are not there by accident.

The colors that we talked about for the party scene look were mainly reds, blues, greens and yeah basically all the strobe looking light colors so here are some color pallet ideas that i found from color-hex.com that we could use for our color pallet and help out with what our party people should wear that would relate to it, not only thae party scene but color pallets for the other scenes aswell.

Color Pallets (Party scene)

 seduction color pallet

This pallet looks good because of its dark colors, especially if the house has white was all over then we could at least have a color pallet where people would have to wear dark clothing that relates to the color pallet and i just think a dark one but not too dark would look good.

Some more party like color pallets? maybe? yes? no?

 

 

 Cant seem to find any other nice looking dark colors so these are my favorites! :D

Monday 10th November 

Experiments with lighting 

Monday 17th November

 First class back since last week on the 12th and now i think we have all the footage that we shot that day/night and are now working on editing it today!.

lighting Exercise

This is a video that we made based on lighting for the class exercise where we were just having fun experimenting with different lighting techniques and different movement with what we are doing in the light to help bring out the effect of the lights used in the shots. We also used the dolly tracks to move the camera back and forth to help add a moving camera effect around the people being filmed so its not boring staying in just one spot and film whats happening, it looks better moving the camera around with the movement.

Video Analyses 3

Insidious Movie Trailer

The thing i liked about this trailer was the use of music and the transitions of the music gives you frights because of the way it rises up after its been quiet for a bit


Here are some screenshots of a closeup shot of the subjects profile and the surroundings around her indicating that there's nobody else around her. Until you see something moving in the back....

 She was frightened and starts searching around her lounge for any signs of anything in the house
a good medium closeup shot of the woman looking around.

 A wide shot showing us the woman's facial expression and that the room is completely empty.

 She walks back and forth and didn't notice that someone was behind her.

As this scene goes on the music is very calm, a ladies voice singing a lullaby and then shows this ghost lady above telling the frightened girl to follow her.

As soon as she gets to the other side, the ghost is gone.. and this is a nice wide shot showing the surroundings of the room next door from the lounge where she had walked from showing us that there is no sign of the ghost and then the music just jumps in and gives you the chills!

Another thing i like is the color of the film. I think its a cold look that gives you the idea of this as being a horror film because it wouldn't be so sunny in a scary part? only unless its in the begining when everything was normal like most horror films are before they start freaking you out.

Video Analyses 2

 

DUST

 
This is a short film called 'DUST' starring Alan Rickman, Jodie Whittaker  Lola Albert.
written and directed by Ben Ockrent & Jake Russell.

This film is about a man who seemed to be some sort of stalker following a young lady and a little girl who might have been the daughter, picking up the girl and walking home after school not knowing that there is this man following and having an eye on them. Yet to find out that he actually is some sort of tooth fairy?.

 These are some screenshots that i took of the film from the begining scene where the girl is waiting for her mother at school.

This is a good scene because it already lures us into thinking that this is going to be some sort of stalker film or something scary...

 wide shot showing the girl waiting, and it looks like its shot behind bars,  as if its the view of somebody watching her.

 shot from the back, girl in focus looking at some sort of ice cream truck shows how weak and vulnerable the little girl is as if shes being watched by something more powerful.

 close up shot of the truck driving away....

 And then takes us to a shot of a man standing on the other side of the road staring away at the little girl as she awaits her mother showing his surroundings and whats around him.

Then a more close up portrait shot of the man showing what type of emotion and facial expressions he has that would mean something to the audience after seing the little girl being vulnerable and then having someone staring at them with a creepy unhappy face would mean quiet a lot.

For me i these shots from the first scene was enough for me to assume that this man was a stalker and predicting that this film was going to be a creepy one, and i guess the director was trying to have that effect on the audience, luring them into thinking the worst and then breaking it down at some point.

What i really liked about this film is how it gives you the creeps, its weird and confusing but still has meaning to it. It may seem like a thriller or some kind of kidnapper/serial killer type of film but its not, it makes you think that way and a lot of the scenes and shots make us feel this way, and to make it worse is the music in the background.

Audio Mixing video

This is a video of an interview that we just had to use to mix the audio to make it in our own way by adding in music and changing the volume around to go with the interview itself and to make it look apart of the video.

And here is some screenshots of how i edited audio and a few cuts to the interview.

Here you see the yellow track keyframes i used to put points to mark the audio on how i want to transition the sound, changing the levels of the audio the way i want it to sound in the interview, not only that but to make the music flow with the person speaking without over taking the audio from the interview footage.

And here is where i have hidden the track keyframes and also have finished cutting and transitioning my footage and happy with where everything is.

And then finished exported and published it:

Video Analyses 1

 SPLIT SCREEN LOVE STORY 

By James W Griffiths

    

This film directed by James Griffiths is a short film about two different people meeting up with each other at the end, and the things they did to get to each other from the moment they wake up to when they are together.

The reason why i really i liked this film was because ive never seen a split screen film before and it was new to me and therefore i found it creative, seeing something different.

The  camera shots were great and the way the shots were both very similar and it makes me wonder how can you film something and then try find something that's happening the same to make it into a split screen film? like how can you do that? haha. 

 

The music also suits the film with the concept of love, its not like love and then have a hip-hop song playing in the background, its more of a calm and more on the romantic side and it went well with the scenes.

My favorite part of the film would be the begining of the film because i like how it starts off when the characters get out of bed and get ready to go because i found it easy to edit and throw in my own sound effects for it as i change the music in the background.

I really enjoyed the storyline and the style of the split screen idea and i downloaded it and then edited it myself and made it into my own by re-cutting it and changing transitions and so on for the class task.

Memory film 1

Memory Film

This is a short memory film i made for our class task where we had to make videos with the concept of memory and this is my first one that i made out of the two.

I simply just used old footage  i shot last term with a few friends and just thought that i could use it for my memory film.

 I added into it to make it a whole was to just shoot the begining and ending shots where im day dreaming and then snapping out of it.

Start daydreaming scene

After daydreaming scene

I also changed the color from normal to black and white to suit the idea of a memory and going back in time but in my mind and it also helps identify that this is actually a thought, not the time present.

Original

 Editied

For sound i also added in my own little background music which i did turn down a little bit so we can still hear whats going on still without totally cutting it out. Also i played around with the volume of the clips and you will probably notice the volume of people talking turned down a little bit.

With cutting the video i just played around with the shots and finding what was suitable to make the whole film easier to understand by picking out shots that that i thought would make the concept of memory complete.

When i finished i uploaded it to youtube.

This is the link to my video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvDvtGrbuJ4&list=UUxgWPulPKG5xylNywF3uraw