The elite book turning scene

Today we filmed the elite girls opening the book, played by Brittany lily as "Emma Roberts" and Ella Bradford & Ellie Whelan as her best friends. Today was the perfect day to film because the weather was sunny, this gave the setting a glow when filming and the footage we took was the best yet. We tracked Brittany walking towards the bench to meet her friends and together they looked through the book, as i said about the sun being bright today it gave the book and background such a emphasis and when we played it back. Today was very successful and the filming was don't easily and quickly.

acting for character videos

For the clips that go inside the book we had to shoot them in front of a white screen, this was done in school using the schools camera, tripod and white back drop. each one of the characters were dressed in their costume and had to walk into the camera shot and do some form of signature pose. For example, one of the jocks walked into and turned to the camera, whilst looking down the camera lens he pushed his hair back. another example was the main popular girl walking in with a sassy walk she turned to the camera smiling whilst playing with her hair, she then dropped her face with a bitch stare and looked down the camera lens. the geek done a rockstar sign with her hands and the geek walked in and waved with a geeky smile.

Feedback from our presentation

When we showed our first cut of our title sequence the class had given us feedback about our work. there was a rating section where they had to choose how many stars our title sequence was worth, 1 star was rated "in need of serious work" 2 stars being "it definitely has potential" and 3 stars saying "why isn't it on MTV already". the majority of the vote was between 2/3 stars which is good because our work was liked by teenagers who are our target audience.

The next section was 3 paragraphs asking the audience member "the elements that worked" "Things that need developing" and "things that don't work are". some comments were similar such as the music worked really well and the cinematography and editing was good, they liked the idea of our title sequence, they liked the fact we had the different characters looking at the book plus that we edited videos into the book.

However the comments weren't all good, we did have some improving to do within the title sequence. they said to makes sure camera shots weren't shaky and that blank spaces need to be filled. An every feedback sheet had this comment " make the images appear before the page turns, maybe re shoot with pictures in the book". so from this feedback we went back and reshot all the scenes where characters turned the book and added pictures on to the area where the video will be played of them.

Behind the scenes filming

As I was the cinematographer I had to set up the setting for the particular filming we had chosen to do that day. For example when we filmed the year book clips I had set up a white back ground with two lights pointing towards the centre, these two lights ovbousliy brought light to the set but the light enhanced the characters against the white background and when you play the footage you can see the difference between having lights and no lights. And for the filming we done of the characters walking we sometimes used a light depending on the location for example the jock walking into the basketball hall the lighting wasn't the best so we tyres to apply a light in the background and as I moved with the camera I had someone follow me with it. But when we played it back we realised it didn't work well so we videoed it normally and adjusted the brightness when editing.

Presentation on our title sequnace

Mistakes made during filming

Today we had to re shoot the freak opening the book in the toilet, this was because last week we showed the class our first cut of our title sequence and the class and teachers said that when we open the book onto the pages of the freak, geek, jock and popular girls that we need to have pictures of the characters there already because the page looked dull, an would look better if the pictures came to life to life because the next part would be the performance of the characters walking in front of the white screen for their "year book" picture.

So we attempted to re shoot the freaks scene where she's on the toilet opening the book, however we came across another problem when reattaching footage back. that the lighting makes the shot grainy, the focus is good and the lighting is however when its played back it looks grainy an when compared to other shots it looks really poor and with it being one of the first shots it brings the expectations down for the rest of it. we persavired on by moving locations in the bathroom and holding the book at different angles so the grainy effect went but we haven't succeeded yet.

Re- shooting the geeks scene

When we uploaded the footage of the geek turning the pages in the book we saw that the video was shaky and out of focus, this was my fault as I was not concentrating properly. This footage was most defiantly not being put in the final cut so I went back with Frankie and re filmed it, this time I took more than 2 clips and made sure I was fully focused on what I was doing. After re filming it me and Brittany uploaded it to Final Cut Pro and straight away we saw a huge difference, it was perfectly still and focused correctly like the other videos we had for the characters.