Dolls - Opening Sequence from Sidney Stringer on Vimeo.

Evaluation

AS Media Evaluation on Prezi

Planning For Activity 7

This is my groups preliminary task for task 7 and this is some of the comments I am going to include in my evaluation:

From the time we created the preliminary task until when we finished our final product, I learnt a lot about what worked best when it came to certain scenes and I also learned the impact of each angle. For example, in our final product, we used an angle looking down on the character in order to show how she had no power or control over the situation she was in.

From the time we created the preliminary task until when we finished our final product, I learnt a lot about what worked best when it came to certain scenes and I also learned the impact of each angle. For example, in our final product, we used an angle looking down on the character in order to show how she had no power or control over the situation she was in.

Evaluation Planning For Activity 6

Luckily, I had some pictures on location and during the editing process to include into my evaluation to show Sarah & I using equipment which was mainly the apple Mac, a camera and two different types of tripods.



I also used a broad range of programmes and softwares during the course of creating my media video, for example:

• Photoshop
• Adobe Premiere
• Prezi
• Blogger
• Picnik
• Youtube

All of these aided me at some point of creatin my coursework and as part of my evaluation so I have created an image that included all of their logo's to make my evaluation more interesting visually.

Evaluation - Prezi Design

This is the layout and design that I created for my evaluation. I have used black to stick to my dark, eerie feel of the psychological thriller genre. I have also incorperated pink into it to add to the stereotypical representation of a teenage girl which is shown in my opening sequence. Although this was not required, I think it looks good and adds to the overall effect which will make for a better evaluation!

Evaluation Planning For Activity 4

Here are some pictures of the image I drew to represent my 'target audience'

Failed Attempt At Exporting Final Sequence

This is an attempt I made at saving/exporting my file into an .mp4 file. It did save in the right format, however it didn't save the entire sequence.

Adobe Premiere Tutorial

Since I have not created and finished a media file using this software in over a year, I forgot how to export the file and turn it into an .avi/mp4 file which is why I used my good friend youtube for some guidance.

Editing

Today, Sarah & I stayed behind after school to catch up with some editing. As we could not re-shoot the scenees due to time restrictions and other circumstances, we decided to use the footage we already had and edit it to suit our opening sequence. We made good progress and sorted out our 'DOLLS' typography as well as the transitions between each clip.

Tomorrow, I will be staying behind after school to:

• Finish putting the last of the clips together
• Add transitions
• Add effects to the clips
• Edit my titles- change font to match 'DOLLS' font more
• Finish the Sequence!

If all goes to plan, the sequence will be finished by tomorrow and I can then fill in the gaps in my evaluation.

Production- Second Day Of Filming.

On our second day of filming, we decided to get the blind fold and opening clip of Sarah putting her headphones in done. As we did this after school, we were weary of the lighting outside and had to film quickly before it started getting dark. Shown below are pictures of Sarah & I filming outside of my house and inside it too for the blindfold clip.

This picture shows Sarah playing with the camera to find the right scene mode to start filming.

        This picture is of Sarah & I on location after we filmed the scenes we needed outside :D

                    This is a picture of the lamp we used as lighting for the 'blindfold' scene.

                 This is the  light source we used. We found that the orangey look was eerie and put more emphasis on our main character because the light bulb was facing her and it was dark behind her. This was an effective illusion and although we didn't initially plan to film it this way, it worked as we propped the camera on top of the lamp and had another in my hand to get a range of shots.

This is Sarah after we prepped her for the scene. We used water and make up to make her look slightly abused and tired. 

This is a picture of Sarah & I after we had finished filming for the day. The lipstick we used was bright red and we had it being put on for Sarah by someone else. 

Production- First Day Of Filming

Shown below are some pictures of us filming the scenes of Sarah walking up the stairs in heels along with Amirah walking up the stairs with soiled feel. We filmed these clips in coventry town centre near the cathedral (or near nandos). As it was a public location we found that we had difficulties getting the stairs to ourselves as people were walking past all of the time and we were filming in the middle of the day as we needed natural sunlight.

This picture was taken when I was filming Amirah walking up the stairs. In the photo I am setting the camera up to the right settings and Amirah is rubbing shoe polish on her foot to prepare for the scene.

This was taken as Amirah was walking up the stairs. As we had two camera's with us, we used one to film from above, to have a close up view, and then one from more far away. This way we could film faster and have a range of footage to work from when editing.

This picture was taken when Sarah was preparing for the 'lipstick scene'. Here, we were deciding where to film this scene as most of our previous filming had taken place outdoors. 

This is a picture of one of our attempts at filming outdoors. After filming this scene, we decided that we had not used a good range of camera angles as we had planned to so decided to film indoors instead.

Synopsis (2)

The synopsis to my opening sequence is pretty much the same as it initially was, however we are going to be representing the dolls in a different way then we had tried to at first. In our first draft, we actually showed real dolls, however, this didn't look well on camera and ended up looking amateur against the bad lighting and camera quality.

Due to these problems, we decided to use our main character to represent a 'doll' by dressing her in red high heels, putting red lipstick on her and showing her brushing her hair etc. We then took these normal shots of a girl and distorted them by having the same things being done e.g. putting lipstick on and brushing of the hair but we will have this done by someone else instead. So the difference between our first and second draft is that the first one is more literal when it comes to dolls whilst our second draft is going to be more about representation and is going to create a more realistic and twisted meaning to the title 'DOLLS'.

Finally, we will be keeping the element of not giving to much away and creating the illusion that there is more to come as we are creating a title sequence so we need to remember that if it was an actual film, it would carry on from the end of our sequence. To put this into practise, we decided not to show the 'murderer' or other character except for their hands when they are putting lipstick on the girl etc.
This was also done in our first draft and worked well so we will be using it again.

Filming DOLLS (2)

On Sunday, me, Sarah and Amirah spent the whole day filming and got quite a lot of scenes done however we do still have many more to film as we are not currently satisfied with everything we have shot so far. We managed to film everything from at least two angles as we had two cameras with us. This was extremely benificial as when editing, we had a lot of footage to choose from from a range of interesting angles.

We learnt after filming our first version of DOLLS that we needed to prepare ourselves with a lot of footage as it gives us more to work with during the editing process. We took this into consideration and it paid off in the end.

We are going to re-shoot certain scenes such as the blindfold scenes as well having a photo shoot to take the pictures we plan to include of sarah (playing our main character) with her friends. This will be done in our free lessons tomorrow and I will be putting up a blog post hopefully including pictures on how this went as well as some feedback.

Photoshop

As I will be attempting to use Photoshop tomorrow to edit some of my pictures and am not completely aware of how to use it, I have decided to research and find out some tips on how to use the editing software. Included in this post is a youtube video which includes some basic tools when using photoshop.

Plan For 2/3/12 ( Photo-shoot & Editing )

We are using adobe promeire again to edit our clips and create our opening sequence, however, we will also be using photoshop in lesson tomorrow to edit the photos we will be including. On photoshop, we plan to edit the photo's exposure so that the pictures merge well with the lighting contrast we will be creating throughout the sequence.

2/3/12 Plans

- take the pictures of sarah and friends. (make sure she is wearing the right clothing)
- edit them using photoshop to ensure that they suit the sequence
- add them into our timeline and see where they will fit well into our sequence and decide which pictures will be used and which will not be
- continue editing our opening sequence
- take pictures of my group and I editing

Sound Editing (2)

We are currently using the built in audio effects that adobe premier offers to edit the music and sounds in our video.  As mentioned before, we are using Lana Del Rey's song 'Video Games', and have decided to introduce the music as if it were coming through our characters headphones. In order to make this sound realistic, we had to make the music sound tinny at first so that it could have the intended effect, and used highpass to do so. Using highpass, we were able to key point exactly where we wanted the effect to start and stop.

The screen shot below show's us experimenting with the audio effect, still trying to create the perfect balance of sound at the right time.

Costume Planning For Dolls (Draft 2)

We have decided for our character to have a 'girly' type of look so that she gives the impression that she takes care of herself and looks quite vulnerable. She will be wearing a dress which will be either pink or red.

She will also be wearing leggings or tights with red heels.

We also want her to look smart to show that she has a bright future ahead of her so we will be dressing her in a black blazer.

Our character will have different accessories like jewellery (silver earrings, bangles, rings etc) but we specifically want our character to have a pink phone and pink headphones to show a really 'girly' side to her.

DOLLS (2) Planning.

Music

Lana Del Rey- Video Games- headphones- tinny sound to start off with then it becomes louder.
Clips

1.  establishing shot we've already done for the beginning.
2. dark shots-  show girl walking up stairs in red heels and legs THEN show her walking up barefoot with shoe polish on her feet- messed up.
3. show her putting on make up herself in the mirror (we film mirror) THEN show someone putting lipstick on her. 
4. her putting her headphones in then putting the volume up.
5. show her plumping her hair up THEN someone brushing her hair for her. 

• flickering light at the end- then says DOLLS

Camera Angles

• get a range of angles-  experiment with a range of angles.
• use tripods (gorillapod and normal one) to gain two angles of each scene.

Lighting
      

• film everything in good lighting- then edit to dark later. 

Editing

• opening titles on the stairs at the beginning- flickering and shaking.
• darkening clips
• music- starting it off tinny then gradually letting it building it up.

Props

• two cameras (HD)
• two tripods (normal and gorilla)
• heels - red (tasnim's)
• red lipstick
• hair brush
• headphones and phone
• compact mirror
• shoe polish
• black tights
• blindfold
• makeup wipes

DOLLS- Evaluation Of First Draft

As  I am going to be changing my opening sequence, I will only be writing a fairly brief evaluation for my first draft.

My first draft was successful in terms of context, however two of the main aspects that failed on us were the lighting and sounds. The lighting we used was intentionally dark on location for effect, however after receiving feedback from the rest of the class and Mr.Ayres, my group and I came to a realisation that what was happening in the clips couldn't be seen properly and even after editing the lighting, the effect we wanted to create wasn't reflecting on our opening sequence.

In addition to this, due to a confusion on set between the groups, we ended up using a HD camera for half of our filming and an average definition camera for the rest. The difference in quality looks unprofessional and although it is barely visible to our audience, we believe it would be best to film everything using a HD camera to receive optimum results.

The sound we used was the nursery rhyme 'oranges and lemons' which was meant to be whistled in what starts as a happy but then becomes distorted tune. Although we did record what we initially wanted to a good standard, when editing, we found that it didn't fit in with our video clips. The opening sequence consequently became quiet unbearable for us to watch in all honesty, as the sound along with the dark imagery wasn't creating the impact on the audience we had in mind.

The very first and last clip of our opening sequence however, are still going to be used in our second draft as my group and I found that the way they were filmed and the effort put into creating the right shot were tricky techniques to master, for example, the panning shot we have right at the beginning which shows Coventry from an angle not many people get to see it from. A rooftop. The lighting and quality used in this clip is going to be a huge contrast to the venerability and dark eeriness of the rest of the clips.

The idea's we had were interesting however they did not reflect very well onto our finished piece which is why after this process, we decided to try again to create the vision we initially had in mind. We put a lot of effort into the set design and finding appropriate props to suit our opening sequence, and also experimented with a range of camera angles such as P.O.V shots, extreme close ups, long shots, panning shots,  as well as edits such as flashing imagery.

DOLLS- second draft notes

·     Change lighting- from light to dark during editing.

·      Change music- whispering/kids laughing

·      HD camera

We could dress a child/children as doll – representation. To show hidden meaning.  In between, follow someone from different windows of school.

Tip.  Zoomy shot thingy where subject stays still – ZOOM OUT WHILST WALKING TOWARDS SUBJECT.

-children

-hd camera

-wheely thing- chair?

-costume

Filming The Establishing Shot

 As adding the establishing shot to the opening sequence was a last minute decision, we decided on going up to the school roof terrace to shoot the scene. Mr.Ayres, Sarah & I all took turns in filming and after a few practise shots, used a tracking shot to shoot the scene we wanted. It was very successful and we were extremely happy with the outcome.

Here are some photos of us filming and some of the scenery we were trying to capture:

The Editing Process

As there are only two of us remaining in the group to make our opening sequence, we have been working on the editing process together in order to make decisions faster and get it done faster with the help of Mr.Ayres. 

Here are some pictures of Sarah & I editing our opening sequence and adding posts onto the blog. 

Sound Recording

We decided to use the nursery rhyme _____ as a background sound to our opening sequence as mentioned in a recently posted blog.  Here is a photo of Mr.Ayres practising his whistling techniques into the microphone.

Below is a picture of Mr.Ayres and my group trying to perfect the sound recording using a recording software on the Apple Macs. We shortened the recording to fit our video. 

Footage Feedback

The footage my group and I filmed for my opening sequence was useful and we did prepared all of the right props and mise-en-scene needed however the lighting kept on changing as it was early morning and it was gradually getting lighter. We tried to overcome this by opening/ closing doors and using artificial lighting when appropriate so that it wouldn't look obvious to an audience, however I am still unhappy with the lighting of my footage. I will be using adobe premier to try and edit the lighting so that it is up to a better standard and visually fits into my genre more effectively.