Production Diary

5^th September: this was the first media lesson of sixth form. During this lesson we set up a blog that would allow us to upload all the work we do in lessons, for at a later date to be marked for a grade that will go towards our overall grade in media. This lesson mainly included how to use the blog, upload and what we will need to add to it over time.

10^th September: in today’s lesson I learnt what is included in a film opening. The reason for this is because this is what our coursework task is going to be. We learnt what needs to be included in the opening in order to make it successful. This lesson was very helpful as it allowed us to get a wider understanding of what we be including in our film openings when it comes to it.

11^th September: in this lesson we had to create a presentation to present to the class on an analysis of a film opening of our choice. From our previous lesson of what is included in a film opening, we were then successfully able to create a PowerPoint based on this information. We chose to analyse ‘Drive’ which is an action film.

13^th September: in this lesson I learnt the different camera shots and angles and how they can be used to create different effects for the audience. Our homework for this lesson was to analyse six different shots in a film of our choice, explain what they are and they effect that they have on the audience.

17^th September: during this lesson we were analysing still images that may be used on covers of films, posters etc. When analysing the images I had to bare in mind camera shot/angle, mise en scene, character, genre and setting. Due to being able to fully understand what included in these posters it will allow me to make sure when I create a poster for the film it will be easily identified of what genre it is etc.

19^th September: in today’s lesson we studied genre signifiers which include; colours, costume, character types, props, symbols, setting, music and plots. This would help me massively when creating my film opening because I will have a good understanding of what needs to be included for the specific genre of our film. We also looked at Andrew Tudor’s genre theory- “chicken and egg” dilemma. This theory helped me understand that different countries have different vies on genres of films, which means what genre I would identify my film as would be different to someone from Spain.

23^rd September: in this lesson we were given the task of planning our own film opening. This included identifying what genre we want to base our film around, and getting various research to help us with our ideas. My film was an action adventure film, because I like to watch films that always have a lot going on so you are never bored when watching a film.

3^rd October: this lesson we have been told what our preliminary task is going to be. In this task we have to create a short film that needs to include a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting on a chair opposite another character having a conversation. We also have to use match on action, shot/reverse shot and 180-degree rule. Before we started the filming process we first had to brainstorm our ideas in our group. This would allow us to know exactly what we are going to do, so we do not waste any time.

5^th October: In today’s lesson we started to film some basic shots that we could use in our film. We filmed many different shots so we could then go back to the computer to see which ones came out the best. For this short film we decided to do a horror this is because we felt most confident with creating this type of film.

7^th October: This lesson we re filmed what we have previously filmed because the camera work was not good enough and didn’t give off the effect of horror. However this time filming was much easier because we knew exactly what we needed to do.

Later on that day we also had a theory lesson were we studied Todorov’s narrative theory. The theory explains what the 5 stages of a film are.

And these are-
-The state of equilibrium 
-Disruption of the equilibrium 
-Recognition that the disorder has occurred 
-Attempts to repair the damage done 
-Restoration of a new equilibrium 
This can be applied to any film, which means for my film opening that it needs to show the state of equilibrium as well as all the other conventions I need to include. We then looked at Laura Mulvey’s The Male Gaze theory.

-How the audience views the people present 
-How men look at women 
-How women look at themselves 
-How women look at other women 
It relegates women to the status of objects, and due to this I am going to make sure I do not portray this theory in our film because we want it to be watched by both male and female.

Dominate- this is how I want the audience to receive my message.
Negotiated- this is when the audience understands the part I want the audience to get, however, they also have views of their own.
Oppositional- they do not like the message that I am trying to get across and, therefore, create their own meaning of it.

8^th October: in this lesson it was our first time of using the editing software Adobe Premier. When I first started using this software I found it very difficult to use because there are so many things that you are able to do on it. Therefore it was just a matter of time to get used to it. When using the software it was a matter of trial and error so I would gradually understand what each button done.

11^th October: in today’s lesson we got set our second preliminary task. This was to re-create the opening of the film Juno. During this lesson we watched the clip many times, jotting down each shot and the time it appeared so we could make sure our re-creation was a close to the original as possible. This also included what types of shots were used, the transitions and what was happening in each shot. This lesson was very helpful so our group knew exactly what we had to film.

17^th October: in this lesson we were finishing up the editing for our preliminary task. This preliminary task has very much helped me and my group because we all know how to us1e the editing software effectively.

22^nd-24^th October: over these few lessons we spent them editing our juno opening. From editing the first preliminary task meant this task was easier to edit because we had a much wider knowledge about the software and how to use it. However we did have some problems once we had all the footage uploaded, and this was finding the right transitions that were used in the original opening. Therefore we had to choose the transitions that were the most similar.

25^th October: in this lesson we finished our Juno openings and uploaded these to our blogs before we broke up from school. Overall after completing this task I feel like I have learnt a lot from it. This is from widening my editing skills to knowing what needs to be included in certain film openings to appeal to the audience and to follow the codes and conventions. Also having a smaller group makes things a lot easier because there is always something for someone to do, therefore this stops any arguments occurring.

5^th November: today we were told to get into groups and within this group we had to come up with ideas for a possible film opening. We established what genre film we want to create which was horror. This is because we felt most confident and passionate about this genre as we all have a very good knowledge of horror films. When we was brainstorming the ideas of our film we decided to set in an abandoned mental asylum which was not to far away from our school. The reason we chose this location was because it has been abandoned for a very long time therefore it will have a very scary feel about it which we really want to promote. We had many different ideas of what we want to do, but we decided we needed to get to the place first to actually see what we are going to be able to do when we are inside.

6^th November: the task for today’s lesson was to research film opening of the genre that we have chosen to do. This included looking at what sort of lighting, props setting music etc was used to really show the genre off. By doing this research it will broaden our knowledge on the horror genre so we know exactly what to use in our film opening.

11^th November: in today’s lesson we looked at script writing and how they were set out.

Normally it will start with the transition for example FADE IN/OUT, CUT TO, WIPE TO and DISSOVLE TO.
The next line would be the Scene heading, this tells us where the scene takes place and what time of day, for example
EXT. CARIBBEAN SEA -DAY
EXT- exterior -the scene will be taken outside
INT- interior -the scene will be taken inside
INT/EXT- interior/ exterior -this would be used the scene is happening inside but being shot from outside
CARIBBEAN SEA- This is where the scene will be taken
DAY- What time of the day they will be shooting; you could also have NIGHT, DUSK and DAWN


ACTION/BUSINESS- This basically will describe what we see on the screen. This does not include any dialogue it’s just a brief description.
PARENTHETICAL- is a direction to the actor about how to read the dialogue. For example before there lines in brackets would be (sotto) this means quietly so the script writers would want the actor to say the line quietly.
EXTENSION- This is a technical indication about the character’s dialogue, placed to the right of the character name, for example;
(O.S.) - Off screen
(V.O.) - Voice over
(M.O.S)- Without sound
(P.O.V)- Point of view
(F.G.) - Foreground
(M.G.) - Mid-ground
(B.G.) – Background
DUAL DIALOGUE- This is where two or more characters talk at the same time, normally this is shown when the dialogue is side by side.

12^th November: in today’s lesson we studied how important the title sequence is for a film and how it creates an effect. For example if your title sequence was fast this could mean the film is going to be filled with lots of action.

15^th November: today we looked at mood boards and created a mood board for our film so we could get a better understanding of the genre.

21^st November: Today we went on a trip to the BFI- Making Film Openings for AS Media Studies. The day was split into different sessions and in the first session it was all about the conventions of a film opening. This really helped us make sure we knew what we needed to include in our openings and what we needed to concentrate on. These are genre, narrative, character, atmosphere and settings. Next we had a talk with Simon Frame who created the title sequence for the Da Vinci’s demons. He told us how important a good title sequence is for a film and how many titles need to be included. Lastly we learnt that the film opening can only be 2 minutes long. Therefore we are going to make sure we plan our film opening correctly so we can stick to this time frame. Overall we learnt lots about what should be included in the film opening, how to make sure you don’t make silly mistakes, the codes and conventions specified to the genre and the common problems that students have and how to overcome them.

22^nd-24^th November: over these days our group researched the setting, props and costume that we want to use in our film opening. From our research we found out that many settings in horrors tend to be of unknown places that no one has been to, very low lighting and in the middle of nowhere. The props varied from anything such as knives masks guns etc therefore we would have to really think about the props we wanted to use. The costume also can be anything from everyday clothes, to work clothes to hospital clothing.

27^th November: today’s lesson we created the storyboard for our film. This gave us an idea of what shots we wanted to use, the transitions and the timings for each different shot.

3^rd December: today we did some extra research into our choice of location, this is because the place we were going to originally film in has been renovated and turned into flats. However we managed to find a smaller asylum across the road hidden in the woods.

5^th December: in today’s lesson we decided to continue our research into horror films. This included watching many different opening so we could broaden our views on what type of text, lighting and camera shots have been used to help promote the genre in the opening.

6^th December: Today we made a plan for the titles timeline this would helps us decide what titles are going to go where and when and what names are going to be used. From our trip to BFI we now have a much wider idea of how to create a title timeline.

7^th December: today we created a risk assessment for our group. The reason for doing this was to understand what problems there are and what we need to do to prevent these or what to do if something does happen to one of the group members.

9^th December: today we went to the location and started to film some various shots that we may use. These weren’t going to be our final clips but we wanted to get some practice with different camera shots, angles and lighting. This would help us make sure we choose the best shots for our final piece.

10^th-18^th December: over these days we continued to get more shots for the films trying many different things so we had lots to choose from when we came to edit. However we did run into some problems for example one part of our setting was undergoing an asbestos check therefore we were not able to film there, so we had to go to a different part to re film there. We also started to edit our film opening.

20^th December: today we finished the first edit of ‘the asylum’ and we got feedback from the teacher and other students. From this feedback we were able to know what changes we needed to make in order to make our film opening better. We also researched different music we could use, asking for feedback on what people thought fitted best with our type of opening.

                       

7^th January- 7^th February: over this time we done extra editing, adding titles, music, taking clips out to make the opening flow better etc. we learnt that the editing process takes a lot of time and you cannot rush it. Over this time we also started our evaluation questions.