P.O.P: Parashoot

Just showing my Parashoot Risk Assessment that has been moderated :)

Rest Of The Pages Are Here:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0BzPxQKPScZT0NDQxZmNiMGYtZDU2Ny00YmMwLTg3NWQtYzUyOWNiZGRkM2Mx&hl=en_US

P.O.P: Day Schedule

ABANDONMENT – DAY SCHEDULE

(This will be attached to Parashoot also)

Time	Action/Requirements
11:30	Train Station Shooting – the fast train and slow arriving train must be filmed in this time. The shot of the empty tracks, the shot over character’s shoulder also must be attainted at this time.  Also the shot of the Edale sign itself should be shot at this time.
12:00pm	Shots of scenery taken from BY THE TRAIN STATION to be efficient.
12:15pm	Shoot Farm Scenery. This includes the sheep, fields and mountain shots. All the types of shots should be attained at this time.
13:00	The River & Moss shot should be taken before moving onto the next area for scenery shots. Ensure to get a range that we can work with in post production.
13:15	LUNCH
14:30	Revisit Farm (2nd Field) for more scenery shots.
15:30	Scenery around Edale, aim for the focus pull shot planned in the storyboarding. As well as any other useful pieces we can adapt later.
16:00	Meet at Rambler’s Inn and discuss footage, review the day and see what needs to be done.
16:30	Take EXTRA footage for our benefit.
17:00	Review footage to check the quality. Time code may be broken for this project. Are the shots working correctly? Focused? Have we used the right set up for the camera?
18:00	Meet at Rambler’s Inn (The Production Base) with the rest of the class!

P.O.P: Shot List

A small shot list for our short film :)

P.O.P: Location Shots

Just some basic shots taken to get the feel of what Edale is like:

P.O.P: Storyboards

Here are the storyboard sheets of the production for the Portrait of Place Production: Abandonment.

P.O.P: Abandonment

The Basic Idea...

After looking over several ideas, we decided that the strongest one and the one we found most interesting to complete would be an abstract story called 'Abandonment'.

It follows a young girl who has been left abandoned in Edale. She sees scenery and animals, but never any people - she's all alone. As she explores, we see her miss trains out of the area over and over again, showing her desperation (they just speed right past her - like she isn't there).

Near the end it becomes more panicky, the shots are quicker and therefore add more tension.

So..
The girl will only be shown from behind (over the shoulder). It adds mystery to her character. What has she done to deserve being left abandoned on her own in this deserted place? The shot is at the train platform in Edale, whilst no trains or people are present. This is to symbolise her loneliness and abandonment straightaway, but still poses the enigma as to why she is being here. This question is left up to the audience to decide, to give them an active role in the feature.

The scenery will be used to show how deserted and quiet the area is, it's miserable and empty (like her life?) - the only thing she has here is the animals and nature.

The flashes of shots of the train leaving is representing each chance to leave gets ignored. The train goes straight past her, never acknowledging her desperate need to leave Edale. The shot is basic and quick, to represent the speed of the train, and the speed of the chance slipping away...

Near the end, the scenes will intertwine with each other, scenery, animals and trains, as well as the final shot of the train slowly stopping at the platform for her to finally leave. Using fast snappy repetitions shows tension and depressing idea that nothing changes here, there's no-one here, it's abandoned itself as a place. However the shot at the end is slow, to show her relief of finally being able to leave.

Portrait Of Place: Ideas

Here's a mind map from when we got set the brief. I admit that at the time, I researched the place slightly and realised that some of the ideas wouldn't be feasible or were too complicated to produce in such a short time, however the one idea (highlighted above) is the strongest one for our group, because it portrays Edale and shows the scenery, and how nothing changes in the place itself, but at the heart of Edale, the station is where everything changes.

Gasman

The Gasman is about a split family, meeting with each other around the festive season, and showing the struggles.

The scene is set straight away with this film, in regards to being the festive season. Firstly by playing ‘Let It Snow’ on the radio, and also with the boy pouring sugar on the table and driving his toy car through it, like snow on the road.

The film starts with a man polishing his shoes, and background ‘house’ noises or children and their mother. It shows the class of the film straight away.

(Shows people getting ready, but poses an enigma as to what they are getting ready for.)

At the beginning it doesn’t reveal any faces. The first face you properly see is the little girl’s, which signifies that she’s a main character in the feature. It never shows the mother’s face – meaning she isn’t important or isn’t an important role in the story. The second face shown is the little boys – meaning he isn’t as important maybe, but allows the audience to familiarize themselves with this character.

The girl makes a juxtaposition of stories, by clicking her shoes together and saying ‘no place like home’, which has been taken from The Wizard Of Oz.

In the middle of the story, the boy throws a rock at his father as a joke - play fighting, which they all giggling at. At the end though, the rock throwing has a darker meaning. The girl wants to throw the rock at the other, but we're just shown her gripping the stone in anger and throwing it down. It shows her jealousy of the other girl being in her family's or more specifically, her father's life. Jealously is also shown at the party, when the other girl is sat on their father's knee and she fights with her to get her off.

The audience get a feel of involvement throughout this film, you see shots at the party, which allow some people to relate to the story as well as the struggles the family is going through.

The costume design has been very well set for the feature. The children wear subtle costumes make the film realistic. For example the children wear their school uniforms to a party, it's sad and shows the financial situation the family is in, hoping for the audience's empathy.

At the beginning of the story, the girl is shown (with close up shots throughout) as the happy one within her family, who loves her father, however at the end, she's the one who's most upset and angry with her family secrets.

Another point about shots is the location used for the production. The Railway line scenes signify that the film was low budget, but also allowed easy tracking shots as well as no interruptions from the public.

The background music is quiet and doesn't distract from the dialogue, which allows the audience to follow the story easily. It's constant Christmas songs to keep the scene going throughout the film. Christmas songs is usually a time of joy and being with family, but this family's Christmas is quite different...

Highrise

Highrise by Gabrielle Russell (2002)
This short is about a mother who seizes the opportunity to escape her life as her child crawls towards the window of her high-rise flat.

As soon as the film starts, you were background noises of people talking and a screech, straight away that makes you uncomfortable and gives off the feeling that something is wrong. The camera pans across the blocks of flats and goes to this one room. It focuses on this one flat, one story of many in this area.

When first in the apartment, you see the mess and uncleanness of the place, as well as dirt on the baby’s face. It signifies her stress, how unwell she’s coping and maybe the state of the house represents the state of her life, just all over the place. The TV program is positive; a game show about winning, the mother is stressed and wants that to be the woman on the show.

She doesn’t want to pay attention to the child at all, she’s worn out and wants to watch the TV Show, but the child’s screaming is too loud for her to hear it properly.

When the child starts crawling, you get a close up of the mother’s face, which shows worry, and the music of the game show goes quiet and you get a wind effect to add tension to the situation. When she drops to the floor, you hear heavy breathing, once again to add tension to the situation. The dripping of the bottle could symbolize many things. Her life ‘dripping’ away, or the ‘fall’ of the droplet representing the fall of her child out of the window.

Throughout the film, you stay on the mother’s eye level so the audience feel that they’re there watching her. When she closes the door, there’s silence and darkness. Does the darkness represent how she feels, or is it symbolizing that what she is doing is wrong?

A scream causes her to run back into the apartment, hoping that it’s over, however it’s from the TV Screen. Show’s her post-natal depression over taking her in wanting her child dead – she wants peace.

The doll is significant. In the beginning, it’s just a child’s toy and the baby throws it onto the windowsill and goes after it. At the end it shows what could have happened to the child if he’d fallen out of the window. Using a human baby doll (which falls instead) is effective because of this.

The Light In The Dark

When researching about Edale and what facilities it has, we noticed that the promotional videos for the area were quite mundane. They presented the place as almost deserted rather than being a nice quite place for a variety of activities.

Our aim is to brighten up the campaign, through a variety of methods. Firstly, we want to make our shots more beautifully composed in order to attract the audience and make the place stand out. Our plan is to use a variety of shots and methods of the landscape as well as the small village to capture the atmosphere of Edale. By using both the landscape and village (e.g. Pub areas), it shows what different facilities the place offers – you can have a quiet walk, do some photography or socialise in the pub.

I also wanted to add a little experimental work to the piece, as without sound, it may seem quite bland. I wanted to use something colourful, as the weather has been predicted to be quite poor. We discussed ideas and came up with the idea of using a flashing (different colours) bouncing ball, which would travel through the shots, almost as through the ball is leading us through Edale. The use of the ball and colours may also help attract young children to the place, as well as adults.

I think our idea will be successful, because we do not require cast, therefore will be easier to run and of course, lower the budget of our film.

Wonderful Winter

Winter is nearly here, and I love this image of a snowy landscape. The colours are all so beautiful, and the picture has used the rule of thirds quite well, sky - mountains and trees - land and water (which reflects the sky).

I've always loved landscape photography - an idea may to use some beautiful local sites for my project later on...

House

(from watching TV Series House MD - 'Pilot') 

House is one of the medical dramas I can bring myself to watch. Although it sometimes makes me squeamish, the way the stories are told are clever and engaging, because of all the twists and turns in every episode.

Hugh Laurie (who plays the main character Dr. Gregory House) portrays the part to an excellent standard, presenting to the audience a character, which is considered to be the best diagnostician in the nation, but also showing his struggles and differences, such as hating dealing with patients and physical health problems. The fact his ethics are quite questionable by the audience, makes him (and the show) different from other medical dramas (Doctors in shows such as Holby City are portrayed as caring and kind) – it makes his character more complex, making the audience more interested about finding out about him, and also makes the show stand out from those in the same genre.

As the show goes on, I started to notice some conventions in footage, for example, when House figures out a condition, the same expression is shown on his face, which the audience learn to recognise and therefore understand what’s about to happen in the drama. This keeps consistency, and also allows the audience to know there’s a twist they wouldn’t expect, they expect one, but it still poses an enigma as to what it is.

Most camera work is kept eye-level, allowing the audience to feel like they are there with the characters and therefore more enticed into the program. And shots are usually very professional in regards to a scene. If something is happening (e.g. a patient crashes) the shots are changing fast to capture the room and what role every doctor is playing to save the patients life, or if something as happened in regards to losing a patient, the music and shots are slow to capture the atmosphere and present it to the audience in a way to make them emphasise with the character. It transfers these emotions (or tension) to the audience, using music and realistic medical sound effects.

There are many things to say about this program, but it’s something I’m looking at in regards to making my work stand out in its genre, as well as producing my work to a professional standard for both my audience and myself.

BЯOKEN (An Idea)

An Opening Idea: Broken

Maybe I’ve been watching too many action films, but here’s an opening sequence idea.

It starts as a shot in an old house. It’s dark, quite and damp from the rainfall. The shot pans down from the ceiling behind the protagonist, to show a young girl on the floor frightened. The girl is begging for her life (the camera slowly pans down to eye level at this point), and the protagonist says nothing. Whilst the girl is beginning, the shot pans down to met her eye-level, to allow the audience to feel like they are stood behind the protagonist, almost helpless. The girl continues to beg, and as she does, thunder and rain sounds continue in the background, the shot fades and focuses on what’s in the protagonist’s hand – a gun.

The angle of shot changes as the gun is raised:

1.  First the gun being raised is shown from the side (slowly to add tension)
2.  Second, the shot shows the bottom of the protagonists face (not revealing their identity just  yet) with the gun pointing towards the camera.
3. We see a tear roll down the protagonist’s face as they say ‘I’m sorry’
4. The shot changes to the girl as she curls up and screams.
5. The gun takes up the full shot while shooting the bullet.
6. We then have a long shot, which shows the gun thrown to the floor and protagonist leaves the shot: allowing the opening title ‘Broken’ to be shown.

Rather dark film thinking? Time to watch some comedy...

:|

Infiltration

This is a film from a media student I found on YouTube. The story is about a guy infiltrating a criminal base, and disposing of it. The director has clearly put a lot of effort into this. Their use of shots is quite something; it’s enticing and conventional, making the piece appear to be professional to its audience. The effect such as the blood appears to be more powdery than anything else, yet it’s still effective enough not to be too bigger problem for the audience. The sound affects are all precise, and the fact there is no speech makes it more enticing and furthermore pose an enigma, it allows the audience to wonder about what the boy is doing and the further into the film they get the more they understand.

Christmas With Dad

In this short film, we follow a man (known as AJ) and his family as they prepare for Christmas, as well as the arrival of another child. The film allows the father's point of view, as he reveals his struggles and fears about his role as a father. The film then goes on to explain why, by allowing him to explain his childhood and health problems that will affect him in the future (such as losing his sight).

The main aim of the director (Conor McCormack) was to portray the father and his family in everyday life and showing the audience the struggles of life itself. The film concentrates on telling the story of how the family came together and expose the audience to a type of family life they may not have been aware of beforehand.

The main focus of the film is the ‘father’ AJ and his struggles, in regards to his family (only being the biological father of two of the seven children) and how he feels about each of them differs because of this, as well as his family health, as he explains how his father went blind with a gene with runs through the family – which he later explains is already affecting him to the point that he may be blind in approximately 2 years.  By adding all of these to the main focus, it makes the audience feel a little more sympathy, as before, looking at the attitude of the family, they have decided against – which therefore shows that the subject matter chosen was portrayed quite successfully.

In regards to technique, the filming format is a documentary convention of blending both interview shots and ‘family life’ shots, which don’t regard the camera. This is powerful, because the conventions ensure the film keeps a professional standard, but also allows the audience themselves to get a feel of AJ’s life (shown in ‘family’ shots) as well as his personal story that he presents in his interviews.

Conor McCormack himself has thought about how and when the film should be set in great detail as well. Simply, Christmas is a festive season for families to enjoy and have fun, but McCormack decides to show the struggles that occur not just in normal everyday life, but at the festive seasons as well. This is also a good technique, because once again you’d expect the audience to regard Christmas as a simple, happy family event, however it exposes how others experience Christmas, and how their problems don’t magically disappear, such as AJ’s feelings towards the other kids (he says he loves them, but cares for his own too much more), as well as his health problems in regards to his sight.

A downside to the camerawork, could be the poor quality shots taken, however since a documentary’s main focus is to portray the story more than anything else, this isn’t a massive problem. McCormack uses conventional methods to shoot the interview, in regards to exposure, white balance and placement of the subject, but on the family shots, it lacks potential. However the story itself is portrayed well, as it uses a range of shots to explain, meaning it doesn’t stick to interview format whilst he talks about his family, it shows their life and the way the children react to avoid any judgement from the audience.

The sound design for this piece is simple yet effective. It’s kept minimal but linked to the story itself, for example, it uses jingles to represent the Christmas season, and that’s about it, (and it’s only used a couple of times throughout the story). Normally this may be a concern, however in the case of a documentary such as this, it allows the audience to understand and learn about the subject itself without being distracted by sounds – which highlights that it is the most important part to the film.

Overall, I liked this production, I think the features all worked well together and the subject matter was successfully portrayed to its audience. However, maybe an interview from his wife in regards to AJ’s struggles might have allowed the audience to get all the views about their reality and make it more personal – maybe even getting the focus across that tiny bit more…

Steel Homes

This short film is portrayed to me, to be about people who keep storage units for a variety of reasons. The film looks at a range of people to explore these reasons, for example a memory of an event or a person they've lost. People are known to keep storage units to keep hold of any part of their history, be it childhood memories or even past dreams or hopes they don't want to let go of. I think the aim of the director (Eva Weber), was to portray every-day life at these self-storage warehouses and explore the reasons and memories kept there.

I believe that the director is trying to portray the life and emotions from this particular place as the main focus, as throughout the short film, we are presented with the people who keep a storage unit and their stories, for example, one man is explaining how he keeps his late mother's belongings here, arguing with himself about why he does this.

In my opinion, the film itself was very successful in presenting its subject matter. There are a variety of people involved in the video that reveal different emotions and belongings they cannot let go of, therefore the audience are able to understand and feel for the people in the situation - for example, one man says that the storage unit holds all the things that make up his soul, the storage unit is 'Me in a box'.

One of the things that stood out to me was the camera work. The way the film has been shot makes it look personal, as we never get a face-to-face interview, we just watch them place more memories and other histories slowly into their storage units. The audience are more likely to feel like their stood watching these people and hearing their personal thoughts, rather than an interview - which results in them feeling more sympathy and involved with the situation.

Another feature was that there was no music and minimal sound with the exception of dialogue (the voice overs). Also, there are minimal sounds used, for example at the beginning with the lift where a high pitch noise is presented before returning to the noise of the lift itself. This allows no distraction from what the dialogue is presenting - because this is the most important part, because it provides the audience with the information the director aimed to project - an exploration of memories and histories in life at a self-storage unit.

I did like this production because I think it was filmed very well. It's filmed at normal eye level, as if it were the audience there looking down the aisle of units, which makes the feature more personal and therefore entice the audience to learn more about the subject. Also it doesn't show inside any of the units, portraying the secrecy or even maybe the sacredness these units hold for people. Another feature I like is at the beginning, when the film is being introduced, that people are walking or hiding away from the camera which signifies wanting 'personal space'.

In regards to the form and content relation, the film uses a variety of techniques to create the atmosphere they aim for with the audience. They structured the work to be very quiet, shown at the beginning when no one is on the corridors, and the audience are shown around alone. Since the subject matter was to portray and explore the emotions, the dialogue definitely helps by allowing people to tell their stories of why they keep their units. There is never any eye contact which indicates that the people want to keep these histories private and close to heart. The style of the film is quite 'dim' in the sense that it's quite a lonely, maybe even depressing place, which is furthermore presented by the people involved, such as holding onto late loved ones belongings.

A technique which has been used well in this film uses is the level of the camera. Throughout the film, we are kept at eye level with everything going on, therefore allows the audience to feel like they are there, and it also allows us to see how the people involved in the film see the place as well.

Overall I enjoyed the work, the atmosphere was right for the audience as well as the subject matter, and the work was portrayed to both inform and pose enigmas as to what people hold.