Day 1:
The first
day that we began our filming our film opening we had several issues
to solve. The largest issue was that the original actor that we had
planned to use did not show up for the shoot. This created a large
problem as we were unable to get anyone else to fill in, so we had to
use one of our group members in the film. We had originally planned
on staying in the location (Admirals Park) for roughly 3 hours,
however, as we did arrive later than expected at 4:30pm we had to
accelerate our filming as we had roughly 2 hours of sunlight left in
the day. This did at first cause some concern as to if we needed a
second day to film the rest of our opening but we were able to fit in
all the shots that we need and we left with about half an hour
remaining. Over the next couple of days we spent a large
amount of time editing our first rough cut together. We knew this was
a rough cut but we still put a lot of hard work into creating a
professional looking piece. After showing our product to an audience
and our teachers we have been given a list of improvements that we
need to do whilst in editing and while we are filming. The biggest
thing is that we needed to make it longer as it was too short to be a
film opening. From this feedback we were given we are going to be
able to improve on our original piece and create an even more
professional looking piece.
Luckily, because I (Ryan) came up with the main protagonist's characteristics, he had a good idea of how to portray him and the qualities within him. This was challenging though, not just because it was short notice that I would have to play him but also because there wasn't any diegetic pieces of dialogue nor close ups to convey the character's attributes. This meant I had to focus on his physicality, specifically his body language, showing that sense of remorse and regret by looking at the environment in quite a contemplating way, and therefore displaying that sense of doubt that helped to present the enigmatic tone we, as a group, wanted to achieve with this opening sequence. Despite the visual weather on camera being sunny, it was also very windy the first day we filmed, which, on top of the impending night time darkness, made us feel all the more compelled to finish shooting as quickly as possible. The wind also didn't help us, in regards to our camera work, especially with the numerous panning shots we have in our sequence, because it resulted in the camera being harder to control steadily on the tripod. While doing our best to control the stability of the camera itself, we also tried our best to make the panning shots appear as smooth and thus professional as possible, however, looking back at our first rough cut, we can now see and understand why this was not achieved.
Day 2:
Luckily, because I (Ryan) came up with the main protagonist's characteristics, he had a good idea of how to portray him and the qualities within him. This was challenging though, not just because it was short notice that I would have to play him but also because there wasn't any diegetic pieces of dialogue nor close ups to convey the character's attributes. This meant I had to focus on his physicality, specifically his body language, showing that sense of remorse and regret by looking at the environment in quite a contemplating way, and therefore displaying that sense of doubt that helped to present the enigmatic tone we, as a group, wanted to achieve with this opening sequence. Despite the visual weather on camera being sunny, it was also very windy the first day we filmed, which, on top of the impending night time darkness, made us feel all the more compelled to finish shooting as quickly as possible. The wind also didn't help us, in regards to our camera work, especially with the numerous panning shots we have in our sequence, because it resulted in the camera being harder to control steadily on the tripod. While doing our best to control the stability of the camera itself, we also tried our best to make the panning shots appear as smooth and thus professional as possible, however, looking back at our first rough cut, we can now see and understand why this was not achieved.Day 2:
The second day of shooting we had to re-film our scenes as we had a different actor so we re-filmed to create a sense of continuity throughout the film. As we were filming during the day at 1:30 we were no longer rushing our filming so we were able to take as many takes as we needed before we thought we could move on. We were in the same location as before (Admirals Park) but we had arranged for a different more reliable actor to use in our film. We have also added in a few extra shots and extended the time of some shots. This will hopefully extend the overall time of the film opening to a more acceptable length.
Having more time to shoot meant we were also able to make the opening appear more artistic on screen, with a higher attention to detail, in regards to the cinematography. I (Ryan) also took into consideration the connotations within each shot, making a point of conveying this single character as the stereotypically masculine, yet remorseful male we had planned to from the start. For example, we used multiple low angle shots to present this male as a physically dominant protagonist and amplify the stock character of a humanising, mourning and vengeful businessman, quickly establish this narrative as being very much character driven. The weather also worked in our favour more so on this day of filming than the previous, with the dark clouds helping to highlight the depressing and solitary tone we wanted to get across. When we compared this to our original footage we found that the less vibrant weather conditions worked a lot better in correlation to our narrative than the sunshine that can be seen throughout the first rough cut.
- Peter Godwin + Ryan Chapman -
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