Our New Schedule

Before, our schedule was quite brief. As our change in plan has come about, we decided to make this one specific to the week to ensure everything gets done in time for our deadline.

24th and 25th of February:

• -        Major discussion with the group
• -        New story board/new time line
• -        Health and safety (new idea, new risks)
• -        Agree on new locations

26th and 27th of February:

• -        Start the filming outside
• -        Think more about lighting

End of February:

• -        Find the best date to film the first shots in the bathroom
• -        Look at the lighting

1st - 7th of March:

• -        One set of filming (Wednesday afternoon) - bathroom
• -        Start ancillary task research
• -        Ensure to keep blogging

8th - 14th of March:

• -        One set of filming - Bathroom scene (Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning)
• -        Finish the research into the first ancillary task

15th - 21st of March:

• -        three lots of filming (filming should be finished this week minus re-shoots)
• -        Ensure to comment on use of angles etc.

22nd - 28th of March:

• -        Last reshoots
• -        Photographs of Alice taken (taken within a media lesson - Monday morning)
• -        Ancillary task 2 research

29th - 4th of April

• -        VERY PRODUCTIVE WEEK
• -        Edit the video (Jessie and Lauren will take more control over this with feedback from Jess)
• -        Edit the ancillary task 1 (Jess will take more control on this with help from the others)
• -        Edit the ancillary task 2

5th of April on-wards:

• -        Concentrate on evaluation questions
• -        Final touches
• -        Feedback from teacher
• -        Finish by the 18th of April 

New and Last Storyboard/Timeline

Due to the change of plan, we needed new story boards and time lines. We also wanted to ensure that our new story boards and time lines were more specific. Shown below are the time lines we have drawn. They are rather rough but, I believe will be essential to give our filming the push it needs. 
Rough time line: 

Specific Time line:

The first minute of our film: 

For the first minute of our film, we have made a timeline shown above. Within this minute we have a clear change of scene, allowing the video to remain interesting to the viewer  The transition from the school classroom BACK TO the bathroom will hopefully be a lovely transition as we will make Alice perform the same action. This will allow the two scenes to link, ensuring that the viewer understands that there is a link in the emotions of the character and the setting.

Change of Scene happens at: 

- 18 seconds

- 34 seconds

The Second minute of our film: 

Above, is the second minute of our film.The action is constantly building. The transition from the bathroom scene (at the very beginning) and the outside scene (with Jessie and Alice) is something we hope will appear very successful and professional. We will have it 'Fade to Black' which will emphasize the fact that it is a change in scene. 

Change of Scene happens at: 

- 1 Minute, 5 seconds

- 1 Minute, 36 Seconds

The end of our video: 

The last part of our video will contain a lot of action (especially in the 'Flashback' section). In this section we will cut and fade to all the different scenes and moments within the beginning two minutes of the video. I believe this will increase the drama at the time and we will ensure that each cut goes to the beat of the song.

Change of Scene happens at: 

- 2 Minutes, 9 Seconds

- 2 Minutes, 33 Seconds

New story line: 

Health and Safety Issues

With a change of plan, came health and safety issues. Although we looked at these before, we never thought to think about them seriously until major issues have arised. 

Firstly, we thought about the danger in our location.

The Bathroom:

The major health and safety issue with the bathroom is the use of water in the bath. This could cause many issues such as a wet floor. A lot of the time, there will be three or four of us in the room. We need to ensure that we contain the bath, not allowing too much water to get anyway. We will control this through use of bathroom mat and ensure to keep checking the floor. With Alice getting in and out of the bath, this is a particular safety issue concerning her. 

The pills: 

Another safety issue is that we are now dealing with drugs. We want to present Alice committing suicide. We decided to use paracetamols as we know that that they are rather harmless and not too expensive. We will ensure that Alice DOES NOT actually put the pills in her mouth. 

To ensure this does not look unrealistic in our video we will carefully angle shots so that we present the moment of swallowing as a long shot. This will mean that it is not obvious to the audience that she is not really taking them. 

Working outside:

Working outside can always be an issue. We will working next to a road most likely therefore, we need to always be conscious of cars etc. However, we will be filming opposite my own house on a road we know very well (it would not be busy). This decreases our risk of any accidents happening. 

CHANGE OF PLAN

WE HAVE A CHANGE OF PLAN

After looking at the filming we had already done, none of my group felt happy with our product. We felt like the story line was not realistic enough to have Alice wanting to self harm. Therefore, we decided to add a controversial scene. We decided to make Alice a homosexual, being in love with her friend and confused about her sexuality (having no one to talk to about it). 

Increasing our problems in the major issue that Alice has dyed her hair. This has meant that all our future shots with her will be her with darker hair. We have to re-film everything in order to maintain continuity. 

New Story Line:

Scene one:
- Alice in the bathroom

FADE

Scene two:

- Alice in an empty classroom
- Alice being shouted at by her teacher (we do not need to re-shoot a whole class)

CUT 

Scene Three:

- Back to the bathroom
- Alice in the mirror - Rubbing make up off

CROSS FADE TO BLACK

Scene Four:

- Alice sitting on the bench (outside of the school) 

- Alice tells her friend about her feelings (Jessie) 
- Jessie rejects Alice

Scene Five: 

- Back to the bathroom 
- Takes pills

Scene Six: 

- Getting in the bath 
- Goes under

First Editing of the House scene

The house scene was one which would be on screen during the fast pace of the chorus of our song. Therefore, I knew that the editing had to convey the argument between Alice and Ashleigh as quite aggressive.

Firstly, I looked through all of my clips and chose those which looked as though they would be most successful. 

As shown below, I was able to take my filming and cut it down in order to have only specific clips to put into my movie. This was helpful as it meant that I can take more than one clip from each section. Due to this scene being the argument, it was essential that we had different angles represented in the movie. Some points in the filming went wrong. Being able to use specific parts of the film was essential in creating a successful first draft. 

I was also able to use the 'Cross Fade' function. This allowed me to have successful transitions from one part of the argument to another. It also allowed me to maintain a fast pace through this scene which is crucial in presenting the violence of the argument and the build up to Alice's self destruction at the end.

Stretching the clip out allows me to adjust the specific sections easily. As there are many small sections put into this part of the editing, it is essential that I do not miss out any good parts of the filming or have them lost behind the other video clips. One example of this is me having missed out part of the clip where Ashleigh pushes Alice. I believe this shows her violence effectively so, in the second draft, it will be ensured to be put in.

PROBLEMS

Problems with this editing include that which is shown below. This is a print screen of part of the first edited draft. As you can see, Alice is laughing due to not being composed when arguing with Ashleigh. This has caused problems during filming at points as the two actresses sometimes find it difficult to keep composure. This part of the video will have to re-shot in time for the second draft. 

Seventh Filming

For our seventh filming, we changed the House Scene to be an argument with Alice's friend. In my opinion, this scene was a lot more successful than the previous attempt. 

The first shot we did was just Ashleigh normally going to the house. This allowed us to imagine different ways of filming.

 

Next, we decided to do a follow shot of Ashleigh, allowing us to see her go through the garden. As you can see by looking at the video, the leafs on the trees brush past the camera. I think this is an effective technique as it foreshadows the violence and distorted friendship that is about to occur in the clip.

We then wanted to film the scene from different perspectives. To try and heighten the sense of drama and allow the viewer to experience what the character is, we decided the film from both characters point of view. This is shown below:

I believe this type of filming is very effective, especially the use of Ashleigh's point of view as it allows the viewer to experience the drama themselves. It expresses Alice's anger at Ashleigh when coming out of the house which can be viewed as a metaphor for her anger at the world and herself.

Another type of film we were keen to do was the 360 degree angle shot. Having used it previously when Ashleigh played the part of the mother (This is again shown below), we decided it was a successful shot in conveying drama and promotes that both characters are losing their control of their emotions. In the first 360 shot, Lauren and Jess were seen in the background making the clip unusable.

The second however, was more successful and allowed me to use sections from it. Within this video, a close up of the two characters is also shown allowing the viewer to capture their emotions successfully. 

The pan shot we used was simple and effective is showing what was happening plainly on screen. it shows Ashleigh getting from A to B.

To show extreme emotion, I believe close ups are essential. We also filmed some of these. Although this time, they did not appear so successful due to the composure of Ashleigh and the apparent bad quality of the camera when filming Alice, in a re-shoot, we will try using more close ups.

Another shot we tried was that of the over the shoulder shot. This allowed us to see a slight point of view of Alice. 

First Editing of the Memory Scene

For the memory scene, our group decided to make the clips in Black and White. This effect is commonly used in films and music videos. Therefore, we were very keen to incorporate this idea into our own. 

After our successful filming (made good due to the help from our other classmates), we used the few clips and went straight to editing it. 

Firstly, the clip needed to be made black and white. As shown below, it was easy to get the hang of. We were about to give the clip a 'Black and White effect. Other effects we could have used are shown below but we stuck with our original idea.

Shown below is the first edited draft of the memory scene. Although the black and white appears as a good effect, I believe that this film in general, does not work. I believe the pace should be slower and there needs to be more extreme close ups and close ups of Alice.