Opening Film Edit

To edit my opening film, I used movie maker. I had to use my partner's laptop because my laptop is old and it is broken.

I had to go to my partner's house to edit, and I could not do that a lot because as soon as I go back home I sleep and I wake up around nine or ten. 

For the front I kept it simple, it looked to me dead and that is what I wanted, because death is the main thing in our opening film.

We did not put the throwback shot. We decided to just have the picture on 'Instagram' because we could not get the girl who is in the picture to act for us. However I add a shot that it was not on my screenplay or storyboard. It is a shot of Liam's legs going down stairs. The reason why I add that shot is because he was walking down fast and I speed it up, that shows he is in a hurry to see her, also it shows how exited he is.

The song we used is Howard - Religion, because the song lyrics matched our shots and the ending matched the death part. We add the heart beat sound with the tittle, to let the audience know that he is dead. They will not accept him to appear in the film again.

The shots that I was supposed to split them, I put a transition instead. There is no split screen in movie maker that is why I was not able to do the split screen.

Critical Reflection

We were asked to make critical reflection. There are four questions  that we had to answer. We had to answer them in creative way. We were not allowed to use PowerPoint or Prezi, we can make a video or anything else.

I decided to create a video. I used pictures and some clips from my opening film. I used voice notes to answer the questions.

This is my video.

Third Attempt

Finally, this is our third and last attempt. Our problem was, the casts could not act for us so again, we had to find new casts. In the end, I had to act because we did not find any other cast to act for us.
So, I was acting and Joyce was filming, and my partner in filming was Migs.

The problem is, my laptop is broken so I was not able to edit. I had to use Joyce's laptop to edit.

I think this is the best attempt that we have made, we did not struggle at all and everything went perfectly fine. We have finished filming our opening film just in few hours. I was proud of all of us. 

We used to my room for Loisa's room, Shunaks room for Liam's room and finally wee used Alewan as the restaurant. 

The two cars that we were using is my dad's car. My dad also acted for us as the person who crashes Migs. 

Second Attempt

As I said in my last post we had to change our cast in the last minute, so we changed it to Abby and Abu Zarrin.

My partner had to film this alone because I was in Doha for a couple of days. So I am not really sure how did it go. 

However, my partner Joyce told me how did it go. Joyce was not happy about how did it go, because firstly she did not like the quality of the camera. 

Here is an example. 

The quality of the camera gives a vintage color which repents the past or a throw back. There for we had to use another camera. 

Joyce talked to Gabrielle and asked if she can borrow her camera. Her camera is Cannon and it has better quality. 

 

Filming

My partner and I filmed the second part of our opening film. Last time my partner and I filmed the part when she gets a throw back, now we filmed when Loisa and Liam have a conversation and starts to get ready.

Unfortunately we have to redo all our filming again. The camera kept on losing the focus for a second and then back. Also the tripod was shaking for some reason, it made the scene looks like we had the camera in our hands.

My partner and I have decided to change the camera that we have used to a camera from the media department.

These are some examples.

Our cast is two twins called Zamin and Angeline. The reason why the twins are acting together because Angeline did not want to work opposite gender, she felt more comfortable working with her brother. However in the last minute we had to change the cast.  

First Attempt

After we finished creating our storyboard, it is time to start filming. Never knew filming on a school day can be difficult.

My partner and I shot the scene where Loisa will have a throw back of her knocking on Liam's door. We thought we should film it first because it is going to be only one actor and it is a child, we thought it will not be a problem and it will take less time.

The child we have used is my little sister. She sleeps as soon as she comes back home. My partner and I decided to meet up at her house at 4:30pm, but when I tried to wake Dana up it took me longer than I thought it will.

The first try was bad, because I was not able to get much of face expression of my sister, instead she was really moody. I never thought working with kids can be that hard. Now I know therefore, in the future I should make sure they stay away and if they fell asleep, I should wake them up before time.

Shot List

Our teacher has gave us a sheet of camera shots and movements and their abbreviations. Each movement and shot has a short cut. My partner and I used the shot list terms to create our shot list sheet.

The shot list my partner and I have made is about our storyboard. This will help us to organize our shooting setting. The reason why we made our shot list based on our story so it is easier for us to know what shot and props we need. This will also help us with the time.

My partner and I decided to make it simple so we can understand it in our own way. I found it more useful than the storyboard, because we can include as many things as we want and it will not take much time.

Story to Screen Storyboard

After my partner and I finished our screenplay and breaking it down , we have created a story board.

The first shot is going to be our logos on a black screen. The following shot is going to be in Liam's room, it will be an extreme long shot to show where is Liam, also panning well be used to show everything that is in the room.

Another similar shot in Loisa's room, except instead of extreme long shot we will use medium shot to show what Loisa is doing and what is in her hand.

The next shot is going to be Liam's phone on Instagram searching for Loisa, my partner and I are going to use zooming in as a movement to show that he has found Loisa's account.

Another shot will be used in Loisa's room, but this time the shot will be taken from Loisa's back, that's because we want to show that Loisa is using her laptop. My partner and I also going to use panning as a movement to show her location and what is around her. 

Next, a medium shot will be used on the laptop and on the phone, to show that Loisa is on her laptop listening to music, and her phone will make a 'PING' noise with a buzz sound to show that she has delivered a direct message on Instagram.

  

An extreme close up shot will be used on the phone in the next scene, to show the conversation between Loisa and Liam. 

After that, we make a shot of Liam and Loisa getting ready at the same time and we will use a split screen for that. My partner and I do not know how to create a split screen, so we thought of giving it a try. The transition for Loisa's screen will appear from the top to the bottom, because later on Loisa will feel sad because of what she remembers. Unlike Liam, the transition will appear from the bottom to the top, because he was feeling sad in the past that he does not talk to Loisa anymore, and now he is happy and exited to see Loisa again. 

Long shot will be used to show their body movement and what are they doing. 

Later on, the screen is back to one screen, it zooms in to a medium shot to show that Loisa is looking at a picture of her and Liam when they were young, that is when she gets a throw back.

We will use fade in as a transition, vinatge color for editing to show that she is remembering something that has happened in the past. The scene will be when Loisa was young and she was knocking on Liam's door but there was no answer because Liam was already gone and he did not tell her. 

It fades back again, and it will be a medium shot to show the present and Loisa's face expression. 

The following scene will be Liam at the restaurant, extreme long shot will be used to show the location and what is he doing.

Then we zoom in to the flowers and the card, but our main focus is on the flowers, because flowers have many meanings, but to our story, flowers represents love.

Another medium shot will be used to show that Liam has called Loisa and he is talking to her.

Medium shot will be used on Loisa to show that she is talking on the phone with Liam. When Loisa tells Liam that she is outside and she is coming. Liam does not let Loisa continue and he tells her that he is coming out  because he was excited to see her again,

This shot will be when Liam sees Loisa and he stops for a second and stare at her. He is distracted by looking at Loisa on the other side of the road.

As Liam was crossing the road and looking at Loisa, he did not see that a car was coming. It will be taken from Liam's back to show Loisa's reaction.

We will also make a shot inside the car to show Liam's reaction and face expression when he turns around and sees the car before it hits him. 

After that, when the car hits Liam, he will be on the floor catching his last few breaths and petals of flowers everywhere. However, the card is really close to him. 

After Loisa has seen him we will zoom to a close up shot because at this time Loisa's face expression is very important.

Then we zoom back out to show how Loisa will run back to Liam.

After that, we show how Loisa goes slowly down on her knees and starts crying. 

Then again we use a close up shot on Loisa to show how her tears.

Finally, the very last scene will use and aerial shot to show the surroundings.

The end of our opening will cut to a black screen.

Screenplay Breakdown

In our class we watched a video about how to breakdown our screenplay. We have to use many different colours to highlight, each colour is for a different setting, e.g. red highlight is for makeup and green highlight is for props.

For our screenplay, we have used dark blue, green, yellow and red. That is going to help us when we are filming, because when we want to film we can easily find the location, props and when to have the make up and on who.  

At the begging we are going to create a shot in Liam’s room. Followed by the next shot where it will be at Loisa’s room that’s why we highlighted them with dark blue, because dark blue is used for the location. Loisa and Liam are highlighted with green because they are the characters. We highlighted phone, photograph, laptop, picture, house door, Liam’s door, flowers, card, car and petals of the flowers with yellow because yellow is used for the props.  We highlighted ‘car runs over him’ with red so we could know that we have to put makeup on Liam at that shot.

What me and my partner had forgotten to highlight is the sound, there is a sound in our screenplay that is ‘buzz’ or ‘PING’, we were supposed to use the purple highlight for the sound.

This is the screenplay.

ROOM

Our teacher has gave us a sheet of paper, it is about the book 'ROOM'. We had to read the first 3 pages of the book and then create a screenplay for a two minutes opening film, to see how people can interpret it.

The first three pages was just two characters talking to each other. Also
The screenplay I created was not that good, because I struggled understanding the story and I think my main struggle that there was not much action.

The original screenplay was completely different, because there is much more detail and the writer describe the lighting, what's in the room, what are the wearing, the way they are sitting and what are they doing before and while talking.

Story to Screen

The final draft of my screenplay is called ‘Dead Beat’ and our genre is going to be romance. My partner and I decided on this name because one of the main characters dies and new story begins after his last heart beat.

As a class we read out our screenplays, then we discussed them and gave some opinions. We changed our old screenplay because we were missing many things, e.g. title and transition.

My partner and I decided to change our story because, our classmates suggested that we should change our location and how the main character should die. We added transitions in; we also added the title to complete our screenplay. 

 The first shot of our opening is fade in because it will be our transition. The next scene will cut to another action which will be at Loisa’s room. It cuts again whem Liam sends a message to Loisa to see if she was the girl he’s looking for and apologies  to her. After  that the transition is going to be pop up because when you get a messages in Instagram it pops on the screen.  After  they have talked and decided where to  meet and when.  We will have a split shot of Liam and Loisa in their own rooms getting ready so you could see both of them in one screen because, having both of them in one screen will not take much time as having each one alone.  Later on it cuts to Loisa in her room, she gets a throwback of her knocking on Liam’s door and there was no answer.  We will use fase as the transition because, most of the movies use fade to show a throwback with a vintage color to show it happened in the past. When Loisa finishes getting ready, we will have a shot of Liam waiting for Loisa with flowers and a card next to him at the restaurant.  When Loisa is late, Liam can not wait anymore so  he calls her.  At the end our last scene will be outside Al-Lewan where they see each other. Liam runs to her and a car crash him.

We still did not decide our angles and camera shots, when we make our storyboard we will decide on it.

This is our screenplay.

Cashew Nut Project 3

After I have finished writing my screenplay and my story board from my last post, I completed filming and I found that it was actually really difficult to film.

The first hardship we had to overcome was to find the location, due to the lack  of bars or night clubs.  Even if we had a night club we would not be able to enter because of our age. I had to ask my friends in school if they had a bar at their house, and if it was okay to film using their bar.

Unfortunately the bar was really small and you can see the house furniture in the background.

I had to remove some items and close the curtains that was next to the bar. I also had to think carefully about our shots and angles so that the audience would not be able to see the house items. In addition, the bar had mirrors and you could see the camera, so I had to put some glass cups to cover the mirrors. However I was not able to cover everything.

I never expected I can be able to film it or edit it, because of the location and the props. I'm proud of what I did, also my teachers and my friends liked my video.

Cashew Nut Project 2

The short scene I just shot is based on the story developed from the cashewnuts, it is about a man  called Ayaman,he goes to a night club one night and meets a girl called Ashely who is a drug dealer.

When he enters the club and looks at her, he falls in love with her, even though he does not know who she is.

when he sits next to her she passes him some drugs. He does not know the package is drugs. When he takes it and looks at it he realises what it is, so he gives it back to her and leaves the night club because he is disappointed.

This is our storyboard

And this is our screenplay

Media

My grades are going down in media, I think it's because I think a lot about other things during the lesson. 

I love this subject, I want to keep on studying media in the future. I will keep on asking Mrs FairBrother about things that I do not understand. 

I need to blog more and keep it update, I also need to watch more opening movies/extracts of movies, make notes and write essays, then show my teacher and ask her to check it for me. 

I need to improve on my writing and I will improve.

Horror Project

For our horror project we are supposed to look at four movies at least. 

We had to choose what genre we want to watch. The genre that I chose was supernatural and thriller.

These are the my four movies that I'm going to watch:

1) Bram Stocker's Dracula (1992)

2) Vampyr (2014)

3) Dead Silence (2007)

4) Halloween (1978)

I'm a type of a person who likes these kind of movies, because I'm into fantasy and I have big imagination.

After we finish watching our movies, we have to create a presentation without using powerpoint.