Creating the Credits

I decided to use final cut to create our credits as i knew they had a scrolling text feature which would be able to fulfill the conventional film reel that we wanted. We decided to use the same typography as the title card so the film could have a sense of continuity. I decided to slow down the speed of the scrolling text to synchronize with the soundtrack before i added it to the end of the footage.

Group Evaluation

1. What did you think was particularly successful about our film?


2. What would you change?

3. Who do you think the target audience is? Do you think we are reaching out target audience? Please comment.

4. Where do you think you would find a film like ours? (websites, cinema, TV, etc)

Filming Sunday 23rd January 2011

We filmed our final scene on Sunday at Adeel's house for the bathroom scene, which is where it is revealed that his friends are in fact just imaginary and that he is just crazy. We chose Adeel's house because he had the perfect space that we needed in order to shoot the scene.

In order to convey the characters as being more crazy than he is, we changed their appearance slightly so that it looked like they were messing about in the bathroom, such as Maurice having shampoo on his head and Parham's collar being messy.

We used a variety of shots here, such a 360 panning shot where it's first revealed that his friends do not exist. We also used another trick with the mirror, which had Alex staring into it with his friends but when the camera tillts back at the mirror they were gone. While the overall filming did go well, some small problems did still occur.

• The bathroom was quite small so filming in there was sometimes hard. This was because the actors had to be in a variety of positions like standing next to each other in the mirror scene. It was also hard at times to find a place to stand when filming as it was very cramped.
• Another problem was that there were quite a few mirrors in the bathroom so filming some shots was a challenge as we had to make sure the camera or crew could not be seen. This was particularly hard in the 360 shot. 
• Initially the lighting was changing on the camera so that it appeared to be flickering, however after changing the lighting in the bathroom that problem stopped occuring.

Filming Wednesday 19th January 2011

We finally began to film the cafe scene of our film. We initially were going to film in Rosca, which was a coffee shop that had lots of space and good seating arrangements. However we were kicked out, which was the third planned place we were not allowed to film in. We decided that the only place we could finally film in was a tennis court bar as we knew some of the people there and there were no concerns.

Ellie, Alice and Aidah were also there as part of our film, as they played the girls that Alex approaches. We filmed the scenes with the girls first and then filmed the boys which is faster. Eventhough we planned to film in a cafe in the daytime, due to not being able to find a location we changed it to a bar setting during the night which worked just as well. Incase the lighting wasn't too visible, we used a soft box in order to give more of a shine on the characters. This looked natural 

Ellie, Alice and Aidah were also there as part of our film, as they played the girls that Alex approaches. We filmed the scenes with the girls first and then filmed the boys which is faster. Eventhough we planned to film in a cafe in the daytime, due to not being able to find a location we changed it to a bar setting during the night which worked just as well. Incase the the lighting wasn't so good, we used a softbox for artificial light.

Issues

• We had to film quite quickly as the owners of the tennis court soon had to open up their bar again. However we managed to get all of the filming done in time.

• We were concerned that our video camera battery wasn't going to last, however we managed to find somewhere to plug it in so that we could resume the filming.

• There were some people in the room with us who were talking loudly, and we were initially concerned that it would affect the dialogue in the film. However watching it back, we could still hear the main characters clearly.

Rehearsing the bar scene

 

Filming Saturday 15th December 2010

Last weekend on Saturday we filmed the remaining street scenes involving Nathan, as he was unable to make it during the previous street scenes. This scene involves Nathan's character talking to Alex about going to the party. We filmed at around midday on Saturday as it was a clear day and there were not much people about at the time. We filmed around the corner from the walking scene.

We carried out many shot-reverse-shots between Alex and Nathan as they speak in the street. However watching it back, the sound quality kept changing, due to things like the wind and also cars passing by. Some of the shots were also too zoomed in so we did these shots again. Overall we completed this scene in about an hour and it went mostly well, although we had to rehearse a few times when Alex's friends slapped the back of his head as we had to get the camera shot right and the lens kept blurring.

If we had to do it again, we would make sure to pick a location where there were less cars around. Also, although there weren't many people about, soa few passerbys still kept walking past the camera so we have to be more aware of where on the street we film next time.

Group Questions & Test Screening

On Wednesday 14th December we had a test screening of our film. This was displayed in front of the class, which consisted with a short unfinished scene of our film. A questionnaire was handed to everyone in the room who was watching our footage which is shown below:

Favourite thing about the scene?

The most popular answer was that the overall pace of the scene seemed good. Other answers were the cuts, the opening of the scene, and a good mixture of shots with the music.

Least favourite thing?

Most people said that it was a bit too short, although we are working on making it longer. Also someone didn't like the extra-diagetic gaze of the characters, and that the introduction felt too 'classic'.

Natural cuts/shots?

The majority of people thought that the shots flowed well and they didn't feel too abrupt, which is what we wanted as they had to be in sync with the non-diagetic music in the scene.

Film areas results

The most common results for each aspect of our film out of five were:

Sound - 5                    Lighting - 5

Characters - 4            Setting - 4

Camera Angles - 4       Editing - 5

What should be improved?

The most common answer that almost everybody mentioned was that it should be longer as the footage that we showed them was only about ten seconds. We are planning on making it longer by adding more shots to fit in with the music.

What's the genre?

Most people thought that it felt like a comedy, although other answers were drama and social realism. We planned for the genre to be drama. Most people probably thought it was comedy because of the bold mixture of characters and the light-hearted music on the scene.

Overall, we mostly got positive feedback from the class. The main criticism was that it was too short, although it was mainly due to the fact that we did not film a lot and could not do much with the footage that we had at the moment. Some people also said that it felt comedic on it's own, but when the film is finished it should look more normal and appear to fit in more with the storyline.

New Shooting schedule

Due to the unexpected weather conditions we were set back a week with our filming schedule so we are planning to make up for the time we missed so we created a new filming schedule.

Saturday 18th December -
The interaction scene including dialogue

Needed on set - Alex Eagles
                         Feargal Parham
                         Maurice Enwright
                         Nathan Jameson
                         Adeel Khan
                        
Camera crew- Aidah Namugenyi
                       Conor Bunn
                       Ryan Haughly

Time : 12:00 pm
Location : Mount Nod Road

Wednesday 23rd December-
The Bathroom scene

Needed on set - Alex Eagles
                         Feargal Parham
                         Maurice Enwright
                         Nathan Jameson
                         Adeel Khan

Camera crew-Aidah Namugenyi
                       Conor Bunn
                       Ryan Haughly
Time :3:00
Location : Lilys house

Wednesday 29th December-
Cafe Scene

Needed on set - Alex Eagles
                         Feargal Parham
                         Maurice Enwright
                         Adeel Khan
                         Ellie Goffe
                         Aidah Namugenyi
                         Alice Marks

Camera crew-Conor Bunn
                       Ryan Haughly

Time :1:00
Location : Tokyo Jo Restaurant