ManFlick Presents.. Apple

Finally we are finished, all edited and discrepancies sorted. We had good fun filming it so we hope you enjoy it.. After 4 weeks, 3 edits and 83 apples here it is...

Apple Soundtrack

Here is our final Soundtrack, I don't take any credit for this as it is the work of Oli but it sounds really good and when you see our final film you will see how this track fits perfectly with it.

Ancillary Task: Magazine Article

The second task we did as already mentioned was a magazine review for our short film, the original one I wrote had more of an interview and review style to it but we soon fixed that and shortened it down. The main colours we used were green as it sticks to the apple theme, we also decided to put some production photos around the page. Here it is..

Ancillary Task: Promotional Poster

Our Ancillary tasks are now complete, we decided to do a promotional poster and magazine review. It's a simple idea for a poster but has everything we needed on it, the release date on the poster is actually our media deadline. On Thursday we went up to the art room in school and took some photos of our smiley faced apple using some of the backdrops in there to get the perfect image. We decided to use green text against our original red and black ManFlick Ident as it goes better with the green apple and white backdrop. Here is our poster...

Final Day

Today we went out and re-shot Sams fruit vendor scene, the shots we had before were fine but had continuity issues. So thats it, filming complete.. We edited our new shots in to the film and it looks much better now.

Last Minute Changes

No we haven't changed our film again! We've just decided to throw in an extra scene where three drunk lads on a night out see the apple and take some photos of themselves with it. This scene will fit in between the girl putting the apple on the bench and the jogger finding it and was mainly decided upon due to the fact that this now enables us to use some night vision shots. Below are the storyboards for our night scene.

Night Time Storyboards

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First Draft Results..

We handed in our first draft this morning and as expected we are going to have to do some re-shoots, other than that our film got a good response.

Here is what we need to do:

The ending must be re-done - we already knew this due to lighting issues and continuity problems.

Soundtrack must be written as we are currently using a copyrighted track.

Other editing and continuity issues need to be sorted, mainly due to the change in weather (From wet to dry).

These issues will all be adressed over the next week and we will have to work hard in order to meet our deadline.

Filming Update

We have been busy filming all this week and have put together a very rough first draft of our film which is due in tomorrow. It looks promising but there are a few continuity issues with it due to the weather, we'll keep you posted on any re-shoots that will need doing.

Here our some production photos of the past week..

Production Underway

Earlier today we began filming, we started by only shooting the small sequence where the apple falls down the stairway. It went better than expected and was fun to do, however we did lose a few apples along the way as you can see..

Risk Assesment

Just as in our previous film we had to do a risk assesment before beginning shooting at each location. There was a lot less risk involved in this film than in Witness and at most locations nothing was dangerous at all. However when filming on the bridge where the apple falls out the bag and on to street level below we made sure we always had someone underneath catching the apples and would only film when the road was quiet. The only other scene that could have proved potentially dangerous was the tramp crossing over the road but again we only filmed when the road was clear and got the shot done in a couple of takes.

Shooting Schedule

We are now ready to begin filming and below is a copy of our shooting schedule.

The Cast

We are about to begin filming next week, so here is a check on our cast. All thats left to do after this is double check our locations and props.

We have 11 members of cast but that is including ourselves after we each decided we wanted to have a little cameo appearance in the film. Myself and Oli play the two school boys messing about on the bridge with Sam the Fruit delivery guy and Jack the Tramp. We used family and friends to help out and play the rest of the roles in the film, Oli's mum plays the lady who originally buys the apple in Waitrose, Sam's dad is the van driver and Jack's dad is the business man. Oli's girlfriend Brig is the girl on the bike and her mum and younger sister are the parent and kid in the scene where a face is drawn on the aplle. For the drunken night part of the film we got our mates Hayden, Carl and Kyle to act as the drunk lads on their way home from a night out and in the dog scene Mike plays the dog walker.

Oli put together this excellent slide show to explain some of our choices in more detail.

ManFlick 4 Cast

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Storyboards

We finally finished storyboarding our idea this week and here are our storyboards in full on the slideshow below. These are likely to change during production as we come up with new ideas as we go along but we have a rough guide to go from with these.

Storyboards

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Location Hunting

We have been location hunting this week and are now all set for filming having decided where each part of the film will take place. We have chosen to shoot the entire film around Windsor town centre as it is the most practical place for us to film and we can all get there easily from school.

Jack made this video explaining some of our location choices.

A Brief Synopsis

Here is a brief synopsis of "Apple" to give you a further idea of the story and how it unfolds.

Apple

We have decided on our new idea, its called "Apple" and involves the journey of an apple from being bought in a supermarket to eventually saving someones life through luck and a random sequence of events. Below is a basic rundown of how the story unfolds.

An apple is bought in a supermarket by a lady doing her shopping, she travels through town before crossing a bridge. Two school kids are messing about and one of them ends up knocking into the lady, the apple then falls out her shopping bag and into a cyclists basket down below.
The cyclist then rides ot the top of town before realising she has the apple in her basket, confused when she sees it she throws it on to a nearby bench before cycling away. It remains there until a young girl walking with her mum walks past and sees it, the little girl picks it up and draws a smiley face on it before being told to put it down, she does so but on a different bench slightly further along the street.
The apple stays on that bench overnight where three drunk lads who have been out in the town come across it, puzzled by its smiley face one of the group asks for his mates to pose for a photo with the apple before they leave. In the morning a jogger comes past and sits on the bench to tie his laces, noticing the strange looking apple, he then picks it up and walks a short way with it before throwing it down a stairway. A dog then puts it in its mouth and runs off, mistaking the apple for a tennis ball the owner of the dog had thown. The owner eventuall catches up with the dog and gets the ball out its mouth before thowing it away.
The apple next rolls into the path of a drunken tramp who picks it up and walks across the street with it but as he, in his drunken state, stumbles and falls over he throws the apple further down the path. A fruit vendor walking out of an establisment then sees the apple lying on the floor and assumes its part of his shipment so picks it up and hops into the van with it as the next drop off is only round the corner at the train stations. On arriving at the train station the vendor trips up and the smiley faced apple falls out his crate, landing at the side of the road. At the same time a man is walking from his train and exiting the station, not concentrating as he is on the phone the man steps on the apple and squashes it. However the consequences could have been far worse as when the man steps on the aplle it prevents him from walking into an oncoming car.. There the apple and this random sequence of events have helped save the mans life

Change of Idea..

We began filming and have been doing so for about 3 weeks now, after putting a quick draft of our film together we decided we weren't happy with it. It was a strong idea but to get it perfect would have been extremely difficult for us with its complex storyline and amount of time we had left to complete it in.. However we are currently working on a new idea, its still a short film though. We'll keep you updated on our progress.

Location Hunting

At the end of last week and on Saturday we went location hunting. We needed an office, a bedroom, a kitchen and a coffee shop, we will also be shooting a couple of scenes at school. We went to FM Global in Windsor on friday and took the following photos, we couldn't get any interior shots but here are some of the courtyard area which we may be using for a few exterior shots.




For the Bedroom we have decided to yours either mine or Jack's.
My room:




Jack's room:




We are more likely to be using Jack's roon as it hase more space to film in, but Jack is moving house next month so it will depend if we can get all of the Bedroom sequence completed by then.

Textual Analysis of a short film

The short film I have chosen to analyse is called “Snap”, I found it on YouTube. It is an original idea by director Manolo Celi. In the movie, the photographer (Roberto Lequeux) travels through a swarm of unexpected twists and turns living a life altering rollercoaster ride which will forever change his life. The short film "Snap" is an exhilarating and entertaining short film produced for the contest "The Florida Industry Incubator". In this competition teams have only 30 days from when a subject to follow is revealed to them. In this short time they must write, shoot, edit and deliver a 5 min short film.



As it is only a short film it does not follow a typical genre you would associate with a feature length film, it all seems a bit random. In short, the storyline revolves around a guy who steals someone’s camera. The man whose camera it was then chases the thief for the majority of the 4 minute film, throughout the chase sequence the thief takes countless photos of the chase until it concludes with the camera running out of film.

It begins with a couple of establishing shots showing the surrounding area and then show the main character (photographer) sitting at a café drinking coffee, it then cuts to a point of view shot and he is looking over at a family taking photos of one another, the eye-line match that follows signals that the guy in the café has spotted some sort of opportunity. He walks across the street to the family and takes a couple of photos; a medium shot shows the family posing for a couple to be taken. As the man goes to take his camera back, the thief asks for one more and the man reluctantly agrees, as he does this a quick pan of the camera shows the thief begin to run with the camera and this is where the chase sequence begins. High tempo non-diegetic music kicks in at this point to signal the start of the chase and various tracking shots show the two guys running down the street. After this point is where the film starts to become a bit random, as the chase continues the thief runs round the corner and the man who comes round after chasing him is a different guy, this continues to happen on two more occasions and the thief’s clothes also change. Low angled shots show the chase continuing and there is a close up of the thief smiling, showing that he seems to be enjoying what he is doing.

One memorable shot in this sequence is where the guy chasing gets water chucked over him, seemingly from nowhere and the thief turns round, jumps in the air, during this the film is in slow-mo and manages to take a photo just as the water hits the guy chasing. Again there is a close up of the camera thief smiling, as one finally low angled shot shows him running in to a dead end, the music becomes slower and the audience sense he is about to be caught. The guy who runs round the corner is back to the original family man whose camera it was and a close up shot of him shows him to be really angry, a reverse shot then shows the thief give the man a sympathetic look and say “I’ve run out of film”. With the audience left not knowing what is going to happen the film cuts to some sort of art gallery where members of the public are looking at lots of photos on the wall, it turns out that all the photos are the ones taken during the chase. This gives the impression that the guy who stole the camera isn’t actually a thief and was doing this whole stunt for some sort of art project.

In conclusion “Snap” is a very cleverly shot film but the sequence of events that take place during have very little or no meaning, its all very random and I don’t think it has enough to it to become a feature length film.

ManFlick are back..

After the success at AS level, we are all back and ready to start our A2 Media Studies coursework. We plan on making a short film and I will again use this blog to show our progress throughout planning and filming. Lets hope we are as successful as last year..

Manflick Productions Present...

Witness

Here it is, the final cut of our film. Unfortunately our final version was not allowed to run over 2 minutes and our first draft was around 4 minutes long so we had to cut down quite a bit and completely scrap the car chase. However, we have made a longer directors cut of our film which can be found on our facebook group.

Production Diaries

Over the course of filming we documented our progress in these production diaries, we had good fun making our film so some of it is a bit silly. We also have a bloopers section at the end of Part 3. Enjoy..

Editing Day

Today we all went round Oli's to edit our final draft and after an 8 hour day we finally have a completed version of "Witness". We spent most the time trying to find ways to cut our film down from 4 minutes to 2 minutes without ruining the overall quality of it. We were dissapointed to have to remove our car chase sequence from the film but it was simply not possible to fit in to 2 minutes. Our film now ends at Sam's car pulling away but, with all out titles and credits now in the film we are very pleased with our final piece.

Evaluation

On the slideshow below is my written evaluation, we will be following this up with a video evaluation and directors commentary as well.

Media Coursework Evaluation

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Production Day 7

Today was finally our last day of production, all we had left to film was a couple of interior shots from the car chase and the stationary shots from the side of the road. We headed over to Dorney lake again to complete our film, we had one problem though - it was raining... This weather was the complete opposite to what we had before when filming the majority of our sequence which could present us with some continuity errors, however we decided to get all the shots we could as this would be our last chance to do so. We may even have to cut our sequence before the car chase starts in our final draft as we are in danger of going over the 2 minute slot allowed for the film.

Here are a few photos from our last day of production, more can be found on our photobucket page

Witness Soundtrack

We now have a Soundtrack written and composed for our film. In our first rough edits we tried a few pieces of music but couldn't find anything in particular that fitted our film so Oli came up with this using Garageband. Although Oli wrote and composed the soundtrack we all had input into the final piece, the idea behind this soundtrack is that it builds up suspense as our killer gains on our photographer in the chase and we think it goes really well with our film.





Listen to it here:

ManFlick Podcast number 2

This is the second of our 2 podcasts, in this one we talk about a few problems we have encountered and give an update on our progress so far, plus Oli talks us through the new soundtrack he wrote for our film.

Almost done..

Just a quick update to say we have set a date of Friday 10th April during the easter holidays to complete our filming and begin the final editing stage.

ManFlick Ident

We now have this as our ManFlick logo and Ident, it will be used in our forthcoming productions.

Production Day 6

We were hoping today would be the final day of production but unfortunately it wasn't, we began filming the interior shots of Sam and Jack in the car chase at dorney lake but were stopped by the site manager, who said we didn't have permission to film there. This was very dissapointing for us at the time but we were told if we bring a letter explaining exactly what we are going to film and when we are doing it we would be ok to complete our film.

ManFlicks first Podcast

This is the first of 2 podcasts that includes updates of how filming is coming along. In this podcast we talk about everything we have done so far and how we got to the current stage we are at, it includes talking about our essays on opening conventions, the market research we done and the first stages of production completed.

Production Day 5

Today we filmed the majority of our car chase scenes, we filmed this at dorney lake and managed to gain a good wide variety of shots. We did this using a third car, Sam's Brother was able to help us out here and drove in front of the two chase cars with me and Oli filming and taking photos of our shoot. The gorilla pod was very useful to us in this part of our film as we were able to strap to the back of the boot and get some very good, low angled shots of the chase.

Below are some photos of todays shoot

Production Day 4

Our fourth day of production was a morning spent at St Leonards Hill taking some extra shots of our killer and photographer to include at the start of our sequence and a few retakes, we decided to do this after showing our first rough draft to Mr Titheridge as he had pointed out a few continuity errors. We had no reaction or shot reverse shots of our killer spotting Jack in our rough draft so decided to get as many of these type of shots as we can.

Here is a slideshow of todays shoot in photos

Production Day 3

After another successful weekend shooting our film, we now have the bulk of our opening sequence done. On Saturday we went to stag meadow and filmed the foot chase scene that occurs after our killer spots Jack, this involves multiple shots of Sam chasing Jack through woods and evtually in to a car park where they both get in their cars and drive away. For all these shots we stuck to our storyboards very well and this helped us a lot. After filming we went to Oli's house and edited our sequence into a very rough first draft and so far it is looking good.

Production Day 2

Today we went back to the same location (St Leonards Hill) to carry on with our filming, we got some really good shots of Jack walking in the woods with a camera and taking photos.



This is the part of our sequence that happens just before Jack stumbles across our killer. We have gained a variety of different shots, high angle, low angle, depth of field etc and are hopefull they will look good in our final piece.

Production Day 1

Over the weekend (Saturday), we began filming our sequence which we now have a title for - "Witness". We filmed our very first scenes of the sequence which involve me being a dead body and getting buried in a hole by Sam, our killer. We filmed this up St Leonards Hill, we spent around an hour digging the hole which we then filled in after. We took some useful photos of this shoot which can be seen on our photobucket page and we also began filming our production diary.

Production Day 1

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Market Research Results

Market Research Analysis

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We have recently completed our market research and got our questionnaire results back, overall 26 people filled out our questionnaire and the feedback we got was pleasing. Once we had all our data together we put it into a spread sheet and made some graphs which display the figures accurately. We then used Apple,s Keynote to create a slideshow of our collected data and our analysis of it.

ManFlick Shooting Schedule

We came up with this shooting schedule, made in iCal. We now know exactly what dates and times we are all free to film.

Storyboards

Media Coursework Storyboards

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Market Research Questionnaire

We spent a lesson creating this questionnaire which we then handed round to pupils and teachers, the purpose of the questionnaire was to get feedback on what people look for in a film and what their favorite genres are.

Location Hunting

During the half term our group went hunting for possible locations to shoot our film, in the end we decided on three different locations for different scenes in our final film; St Leonards Hill, Stag Meadow and Dorney Lake. Here is a short Slideshow of some of the photos we took.

Analysis of Opening Sequences 2 (Saw1)

I have again looked at the opening sequence of Saw 1 except this time I looked in detail for narrative codes in the opening of the film. At the beginning of Saw there are both Hermeneutic and Proairetic codes that leave the audience confused and wanting to know what is going on. The Hermeneutic and Proairetic codes are 2 of 5 codes laid out by Roland Barthes. The first thing the audience see is a Adam sitting in the bath and sounding panicked, because the room is dark and the audience cannot see much it leaves them a bit confused and not knowing where the story is heading. However this does give the audience some kind of indication that the film is likely to be of the horror/thriller genre. Adam is then seen, still in a darkened light, climbing out the bath tub and trying to free himself – the sound of chains five the indication he is tied up.

A small snare is then cleverly put in after that shot – you hear a deep voice coming from the same room saying “Its no use, you can’t escape” – the audience are lead to believe that the voice is coming from someone who may have something to with the situation Adam finds himself in. It is revealed shortly after that the voice is coming from someone one the other side of the room that is also tied up. Adams face is full of fear as the lights are turned on and as the camera pans round to show the whole of the room it reveals how dirty an old it is, a high angle shot is then used to show a corpse on the floor – all this adds suspense to the opening of the film and still leaves the audience unaware of how or why these 2 characters are in this situation. Further shots of the room show that the situation the pair find themselves in may be unsolvable – this is called jamming, which leads the audience to believe there is no way out for either character.

Brainstorming For Our Final Film

Before going ahead with our final film storyboards we spent a lesson deciding the order of events in our movie and disscussing possible locations. We came up with this flow chart using Apple's Keynote.

Preliminary Task Analysis

For our preliminary sequence we decided that Sam and me would film and Jack and Oli would appear in the sequence. To prepare for our preliminary task we spent a lesson story boarding our idea and talking about how we would shoot it, we story boarded 12 frames and spent time deciding what type of shot each frame would be. As the sequence had to include some dialogue between 2 people we decides that we would make ours slightly comical with Oli walking into the room and trying to persuade Jack that one music concert can save the world from pain, hunger and suffering.

We shot the sequence in school as it was the most practical for us as we only had one lesson to complete filming, we spent a lot of time trying to find a room to shoot in which didn’t help but eventually we found that room 44 was empty and so shot our sequence in there. The only equipment we used were the 2 mini DV cameras to shoot our sequence, we chose not to use tripods as if all our shots were not perfect it would not be too important, as it is only our preliminary task and we our aiming for a big improvement with our main task. Once we found a room to film in, it only took us around 15 minutes to complete filming our sequence, which went well. We then uploaded our footage to the laptop ready for editing in our next lesson.

Our editing went very well, it took us one lesson to complete editing our video. Oli was good at using the Final Cut software on the macbook as he had previously used it and this helped us to complete our editing quicker. The biggest difficulty we faced was finding a room to shoot in; we spent around 20 minutes of the lesson walking around trying to find an empty room, which was a waste of time. If we had prepared better and found out what rooms were empty before our lesson perhaps we could have shot our sequence in shorter time.

My overall impression of our preliminary task is that it is a good sequence that was put together and edited well; it is not too long and includes everything that was required to be in it. We would improve our preliminary task by preparing slightly better and maybe being more decisive in what we were going to do.

I have learnt that preparation is crucial during the preliminary task, we must prepare in far more detail for our main task if we are to be successful in it. I have also learnt that time keeping is crucial, we will have to do make sure we know exactly what we are doing and when we are doing it for our main task but I believe if we stick to our idea and plan well our main task will be a success.

Preliminary Task Story Boards

Before we went and filmed our preliminary task we spent a lesson storyboarding our sequence, this helped us as we knew exactly what we were doing before we started and got our film done within one lesson.

Analysis of Opening Scenes (Saw 1)

The film begins with a close up shot showing a character under water breathing heavily as he comes up for air and then screaming. The picture then goes to complete darkness for about 40 seconds and all the audience can hear for this period is dialogue between two characters that are yet to be revealed. They sound panicked and worried about the situation; bright lights are then switched on to show two men at either side of what looks to be a rusty old bathroom. The camera pans around after showing the two men and reveals that there is a corpse in the middle of the bathroom floor holding a revolver. As the two men try to move it is revealed that they are chained up to pipes at opposite end of the bathroom and cannot escape, one of them seems a lot more panicked and worried than the other at this point and begins to scream for help. The audience are only introduced to these two characters, Adam and Lawrence, the two men who are chained in the bathroom. The characters are constructed in contrasting ways with Adam seen to be very worried about where he is and what’s going on whereas Lawrence is acting very calm considering the situation he finds himself in. The audience are probably positioned to like Adam and Lawrence in this short opening sequence as they are trapped in a horrible room being challenged to escape, Adam is represented as quite a vulnerable character and maybe this is a way to get the audience to feel sorry for him and want him to escape.

The opening sequence reveals only one setting – the bathroom in which the characters are trapped in, at first it is blacked out and you expect the film to be dark but bright lights a switched on to reveal the whole room. The bathroom appears to be very rusty and old and the corpse being shown on the floor in the middle of the room may give the audience a fright early in the film – this already suggests the film is going to be of the Horror genre. The significant camera shots used in the opening sequence include the first close up of Adam to show the worry on his face, the master shot of the bathroom after the lights are switched on – this reveals to the audience the whereabouts of the characters and emphasises the bad situation the characters find themselves in. The camera pans around to the corpse and is then cut to a bird’s eye view of the corpse lying in the middle of the floor – these are the first shots to reveal there is a corpse in the room as well as the main characters.

Editing is used well in the opening scene of Saw to add suspense and tension to the film, a shot reverse shot is used when the two characters look across at each other once the lights are switched on – this shows their reaction to the situation and the worried look on Adams face. One other significant piece of editing in the opening scene is when the camera cuts quickly to the birds eye view shot of the corpse – the sound of Adams screaming reaction is timed perfectly here as the corpse is shown. The sound in the scene is mostly dialogue between the two characters and Adams screaming scared reaction, a slow non-diegetic piece of music is played throughout the start whilst the scene is in darkness – this builds up tension and adds to the audiences suspense as they do not yet know what is about to be revealed. When the lights are switched on they make a loud noise and this with the slow music and darkness just before creates a contrast and may give the watching audience a scare.

The opening credits have been presented with the sound of a saw chopping as they appear on screen, as the super-imposed title “Twisted Pictures” appears on screen animated barbed wire starts to wrap around the text and shortly after a saw falls down through the middle of it – this gives a scary effect and relates to what is going to happen in the film. The screen then goes dark and the title “Saw” appears in the centre of the screen and gradually fades away in silence.

First Blog Entry

Welcome to my blog, I will be using this blog to post my progress on my media studies coursework.