Bogdan fith update (its been a while)

right since my last post we have infact finsihed filming bogdan and are ready to go into post production but i will first talk about the day of the shoot.

For me the day started at about 5:30 in the morning because as the producer i had alot of work to be getting on with. Other than getting prepared before leaving the house, my first task was to go down to boots library and print out the images of bogdan's "wife" and "son" so that we had our props for the living room setting.
The second task of mine was to ring up the taxi firm so that I could organise times for picking up and dropping off through out the day so that we could stick to the schedule easily.
After the taxi's were booked me and the crew (excluding the director who was meeting the actors) went to the first location so that we could start setting up the equipment for the first set of shots.
After making sure that it was all in order I headed to the shop as i thought as the producer believed i should make sure that my crew were comfortable as well as the actors so I bought every one a bottle of water to make sure that the didnt get thirsty as we were going to be on the set for a while.
During the first shoot we did encounter some problems as the sound on the camera was not coming through witch lost us some time but after that was fixed we got to work.
Whilst shooting the third shot we encountered another problem as the council decided to start blowing leaves in the cemetery which caused alot of background noise that we did not need so as producer I went across to ask if they could calm the noise while we were shooting, consideratly they moved further up the cemetery but this did not help us however because of the way the microphone was posistioned alot of exterior noise wasn't picked up.
After being 40 minutes behind schedule we finally finished the first shoot and headed straight to forest fields to start shooting the second scene.
While every one was at forest fields shooting the tram scene me and the lighting manager (ryan) headed up to york house with the props and lighting equipment to start preparing the second set ready for when we needed to shoot in order to save time. This was a struggle as there was alot of equipment/props for just two people so after arriving and unloading the taxi at york house it took me and ryan five trips to get all the equipment/props up to the fith floor.
When we had finally loaded the room with every thing ryan got to work with the lights and i started dressing up the set.
The crew arrvied shortly after I finished the set which meant it was then time for lunch which lasted around twenty mins for me as after lunch headed to my house to start setting up the final location, however before I could even reach byron house i get a phone call explaining that some equipment was missing (boom pole) so i had to go back to the first set where i luckily found the piece of equipment which i then brought back to the sound man (umar) so that they could commence with the shoot.
I eventually got to my house so that i could start setting up the location, As stressed out as i was already i realised that i also had work later that same day which meant that theoretically i had to leave half an hour before shooting ended leaving the crew at my house with all the expensive equipment, but as they say education comes first.
After i had set up the location it was getting to four o clock and all i could do from then on was wait for the rest of the crew to turn up so that we could get on with the final shoot.
Finally at half past four the first half of the crew and jarrod turned up so that we could start setting up the lights and camera.
After we finished setting up the equipment it was ten to five and the director was still not here and we only had 40 minutes to shoot the final scenes which meant that we had to cut a scene from the living room set.
Every one was feeling the pressure at this point especially me as i had alot of responsibilty on my shoulders as well as being late for work.
It eventually got to half past five and we had all the footage that we needed luckily to make a descent edit of the film.

Here are some images from the day of the shoot: (coming soon)

bogdan fourth update

After we had decided what our new sets were going to be we decided to go and test the shots that we were going to use so that we were prepared on the day. The first set that we went to was to the djanogly centre as that is our key scene which we have to be the most preapared for on the day. The shots that we tested were a number of tracking shots a descending shot and a few still shots. The sound engineer also recorded some ambient sound just incase we neededd any recorded for the editing stages
The second location that we went to was to forest fields so that we could get a feel for the atomsophere and the surroundings that we were working in. The first thing that we did was to discuss all the shots that we would like to do before we got the equipment out so that we would save time messing around with the equipment. The shots that we decided to do were mostly still on the tripod but with maybe some pans as the shot is very simple yet meaningful. When we decided to get the equipment out there were a few problems as the weather got bad causing us to pack up our equipmewnt however we are still prepared as we know what shots we would like to do on the day.

we are going to test the next location on the wednesday so we have more time to set up and test the lights as well as the camerea shots as the next scenes are interior

bogad third update

After some changes to the script and errors with locations i had to go out in search of new locations. that fitted better to the script and looked more realistic for the set.

the first set i had to change was for the djanogly centre we still used this building but we used an exit at the other side of the building rather than the one we had orignally decided to use

the second location that we had to change to fit the script was the forest fields shot. instead of having it on a grass verge we decided to have bogdan sat at the tram stop as it fitted in with the story better and gave it more meaning.

When we had agreed on the locations i had to again take risk assessments for the locations to once again make sure that they were safe for the cast and crew to use.

bogdan second update

Now we know where we are shooting and have the final script sorted out we thought we would get a head start at learning how to use the equipment as some people had taken on new roles:

this is one of the cameras we tried out:



this is the crew having a script approval meeting with jools:

bogdan update

This week has been very hetic and there has been alot of work that has had to be done but I will start from the top:

1. locations

This week I set out around looking for locations for bogdan this was difficult as i had to find three different sets all in near by location so that we could have more time to get between locations but finally after a long hard look i found the three locations.

location 1 Grass verge (forest fields)

location 2 Bogdan living room (my living room)

location 3 Bogdan lawyer office(smoking area) (D.I.C.e centre city campus)

Risk assessments

for each of these locations i had to undergo a risk assessment to make sure that they would be safe to use for both actors in the scenes and the production team.
during this risk assessment i didnt find any major hazards that could harm either the actors or the production team so i feel that if we all take the right precautions then nothing could go wrong.

Bogdan The Making of

On the side of the bogdan project I have decided to do my own separate project to give myself a bit of a challenge and also experience in doing my own work so I have decided to do a short documentary about the making of bogdan and include it in my final edit for when we finish the bogdan film. Im looking forward to it but its going to take alot of work.

Bogdan

New Post new film.

We have been given the new script for our assessed group film which is called bogdan It is about a romanian man who has come over to england and the story revolves around his financial and cultural struggle, I will have more information when The director has re wrote the script.

The first thing we did when we got our script was to assign eachother with roles i again chose location manager but I am also now the producer, duncan is our director again, diana is our camera operator,umar is our sound guy, ryan is in charge of the lighting and abdul is our editor.
We had our first meeting yesterday and we have all settled into our roles and know what we are doing and are now getting on with their assigned jobs but thats it for now.....my next post will be up shortly

Malac Finished

After alot of discussion and work finished the final edit of the malac project and feel that we have done a pretty good job so here it is enjoy:

Malac shooting

Before we started shooting Malac we changed the title slightly to "malica" to make it sound more like a model or object.

The first thing that we did to start shooting was to let the actors come round early so that they could rehearse there lines and get used to working with eachother, the set and the script:





When they had rehearsed the crew and I went to the first set to start shooting the establishing shot:











After we had finished shooting the establishing shot we went back to the set too start shooting the kitchen scene but there were a few problems as the actress got seriously delayed and we lost two hours of filming time. However when she got back we started setting up the set for the kitchen scene and started shooting:









After we had finished filming the kitchen scene we started to set up the main basement scene taking health and safety precautions first obviously:





After the safety measures had been taken we started to set up the scene and got the actors ready to start shooting. To get an effect that the characters had been there a while we used oil and water to make it look like they were sweating and dirt to make it look like the guy had been pushed around by the dominant woman:









When we had added the effects we started to shoot and after filming from all different angles and nailing the set and script we managed to finish at the early time of 11:30 but now we have all the footage that we need in time to edit for next thursday when I will upload the final video so look out for my next malac post

Here are a few promo images:

Malac update

Right since my last post a lot of things have happend which means that this is going to be a long post.

Firstly before the filming could take place we had to find a location so the director (duncan) and I went on a hunt for locations for the three scenes. The first set we looked for was for the establishing shot which we wanted to be in a secluded quiet and middle class area, so we headed for the park. After half an hour of wandering we found two houses in the same area that we thought were perfect for the part as they were right in the area that we wanted but we could not decide which one that we wanted to choose so I took pictures of both the houses so that I could show the rest of the crew and make a group decision and also so that people in other roles could decide what setting would be better for them for example camera man (umar) and lighting manager (diana). Here are the pictures of the two sets. Also because I chose two different houses I decided to risk assess the whole area so that we could use either house incase there was a reason that we had to change the house that we shot.

house 1:


house 2:



After all the risk assessments had taken place and we had made sure that we had made the right decision about the setting we started discussing what set we would use for our main scene and the director mentioned that he had a basement which might fit the mood for that scene so we went to this basement to see if it was useable for the setting. After looking over it I did a risk assessment just incase we used this room but I thought that there would be some space issues so I went to look for a backup setting which I thought would also be good for the setting so I looked over the script to see what would be relevant and I thought that my sisters flat could be good as it had a nice red interior which could reflect the emotion of the film.

Here are pictures of both the sets:

Basement:



Flat:



Again after I had risk assesed both sets I took the images to the rest of the crew for the same reasons and after long discussion and organising we decided to use the basement for the main set as we all agreed that we wanted the film to have an eerie aspect to it which this basement gave off as you will see when I publish the film.

The last set we had to decide was for the opening scene and we thought that because it was supposed to be every day life we would just use an every day life kitchen:



When we had finalised our decisions about the film and how we would go about shooting it etc we started to make sure that we all knew our roles and made sure that we knew what we were doing (even though by this point my part was nearly over) so we hired a studio so that we could experiment with the equipment:

Here are a few examples:







After we had tested the equipment we got in touch with the actor so that we could run through the script with them and get them familiar with the story and there characters so that they were prepared for shooting

The day before we started filming we took the equipment to the set so that we could decide what shots we were going to take and where we would put the lighting here are some pictures that I took while this was taking place:







While the rest of the crew was setting up the equipment the sound man (ryan) and I went to the first set to record some ambient sound:

Malac

Today we were assigned into our groups to start our practice project for project three which is the fictional film.
Before we started planning "malac" we were assigned a task in which we had to shoot different shots to get the jist of the sort of advanced shots we need to take into account when shooting which were deep flat limited and ambiguous. When we finished shooting we took our shots to get analysed and I will admit that there was more negative then positive feedback but if anything that made our group more determined to make this film better, I would go into more detail but I like to get straight to the point.
To start planning our shooting for malac our group met up we organised ourselves into specific roles so that we knew what part of the film that we were responsible for so that we could also organise our time better The role that I took on was the location manager/health and safety/photographer. After we sorted our roles out we started talking about the script and what we could do to improve the script and to make it unique from any other and I would say how we did that but you will find out in a week when the project has finished. I like to think our team worked well together as we all chipped in ideas for the film and came to a mutual decision. When we had discussed what we were going to do in our roles we each went away to start what we had to do in our area of responsibilty, I personally went to go out and find sets for the film so that I could choose were I want to film it so that I can risk assess it so that we can get the filming up and running but thats all to come so look out for my next post.

This is us working on our script:

the imaginarium of doctor parnassus

Today I went to go and see the film the imaginarium of doctor parnassus. I did not intend on going to see this film I was technically dragged down however knowing I was going to see this I looked up the synopsis and thought that the plot was quite interesting and I also found out that it was directed by terry gilliam who had produced directed acted and wrote alot of the monty python films which I am a great fan of so I was then extremely looking forward to go and see the film.

After watching the film I was very impressed by the plot and thought the film was put together very well all though some people may not understand the film. Being a monty python fan I noticed alot of similaraties to the monty python film in terms of the animation that monty python uses, also the way it was wrote and produced you could just tell it was terry gilliam.

I would reccomend people to go and see this film as it is very enjoyable and I feel that it is a film that every one can enjoy.

Task For M.I

This weeks task was to find out and describe the role of the location manager, so i have gone out and done that.
The role of the location manager is to go out and find a suitable location for either a photographic shoot or film that is taking place. When looking for the setting location there are alot of things that they have to consider such as price of the location whether it is suitable for the film meaning things like; does it fit the genre are the light levels good enough and if the setting is a safe environment.

Act Britain Act

Yesterday I went to the filming of a T.V pilot called "Act Britain Act" it was sort of like the x factor but for actors. This was the final and there were only three male and female acts left and the audience had to vote on who they wanted to go through to the actual filming of the show, for us to vote they showed the acts acting on film and then live on stage I observed them both and tried to look at them from the audio visual side rather than the drama side. The first thing that I looked at when observing it was from the film that they showed us, personally I thought that the acting and stage direction was all done fine but there was things like the lighting that I thought they did a bad job on for example there was one scene they had to act from Notting hill where they where in a room and the light was glaring and there were parts where I couldn't even see the actress's face and another scene was filmed in a night club and the lighting was very dark and once again you could not see the actors/actress's face. There were other things that went on during the live performance also when the acts got too close to each other and there was a lot of feed back in the speakers or it suddenly got too loud which the acts actually pointed out at the end of the show. But there were some good points about the the show the direction was good and the layout of the set etc.

At the end of the day enjoyed my self and learnt some more about A.V as I also payed close attention to the camera men and I would like to see the programme go to air so I can see how far the contestants get.

New Start

The academic year has started and I intend on getting stuck in straight away. I have just finished my first week of lectures and seminars of Moving Image and I am very impressed and cant wait to get stuck in to my first project. The project I am looking forward to the most I think is the documentary but im not quite sure what I am going to for it yet as we have not even been set groups but all the more fun to come I suppose.
One of the things that we have been told to by danny kaye was to go home and listen to dark side of the moon to get a good idea of sound mixing as he reccommended it and said that it was perfect and after going home and listening to it I would have to agree that the quality of the album was great and I would reccommend it to any one who is interested in sound.

Now moving on to Spp2 im thinkning to myself that im going to work to my hearts content this year as I would like to do astoundingly better than last year the first thing I am going to do is to go to the libary and get the reccomended books and to do quite a bit of researching and then start to plan my essay but other than that for now I dont think that there is much I can say about spp2.

Finally I move on to the tutorials. My tutor is Jools so i dont know about other groups but I have enjoyed my first tutorial as it was very relaxed and I can certainly say that I look forward to the next and other upcoming tutorials and you never know there might be more cake.

Interactive moodboard

I have chosen to do an interactive piece as one of my elements for my box. This is going to be an interactive mood board in which i have selected film t.v music and games. This is my mood board.



The idea of it is to select the image so that the clip play, here is one of my favourite videos that i have chosen (this is the video if you select life on mars), The way sound is used is really well edited:

My Box

My interactive box is going to be a crypt which you can then enter to view my different identities projects which will include two films an interactive mood board my logo and avatar (which will pop out of a coffin).

This is my first basic layout for the outside of my box but it needs alot of work doing to it

Logo for identites

These are a few logo ideas for my identities project there are more to come feed back would be nice

logo 1



logo 2



logo 3



logo 4



logo 5 (I may get done for copyright on this one but thought i'd put it up any way because I liked it)



logo 6

Mood board 1

This is my first mood board for my avatar may edit it feedback would be nice

written task

Over the last four years I have been studying media and have done alot of studying in films tv and music and because of this my interests in this field have grown. This interest has inspired me to create projects in this field such as creative art films and music videos. As years grew on i thought that I should broaden my horizons of the subject which is why i decided to take multimedia. This creativity has been for myself as it is my personality that makes me creative also because I would like to succeed in this area and get a strong careea in this field. After talking to lecturer's and looking over my choices I have decided that I want to take the path way of A.V and study mainly music videos.
The way in which research and help me get into new places is so that I can get inspiration off other practitioners to help me understand what sort if thuings in need to do to succeed in my pathway.

second life

Ive been on second life and have visited a few places and took a few pictures when i first started to use it i thought it was a bit weird but i reckon that once you get used to it it could be a good way to visit places and a good way to socialy interact. some of the places i visited were just like rock bars manhattan beach and some sort of doctor who conventions here are some pictures:

weird rock bar:



medevil nottingham



another weird bar:



the tardis: