''Love Actually'' Filming

Task:
To recreate the opening two minutes of a film of your choice

Equipment:

We took with us two video camera's, a tripod and list of the shots we wanted to get.

Filming:
Today me and my group met at the set date and time which we had arranged a couple of weeks ago in order to film our opening two minutes of the film we chose, Love Actually. 


Norwich Airport:
Although being half term,  the airport did not have many passengers. Luckily we had expected this having been to the airline already ourselves, hense why we organised to also film at a second location, Chapelfield shopping centre, also in Norwich. Although not very busy, we still managed to get some good shots, these included:

· Various close up shots (in order to express emotion) of families/couples/friends hugging and talking to one another after being reunited having just come back from their holiday

· Outside shot of the airport 

· Long shot of an airplane either taking off or coming into land

- All of which we had planned prior to filming. 

As we wanted all of our shots of people hugging and greeting each other after just coming back from their travels, we felt asking their permission to be filmed before greeting one another may mean that it comes across unnatural and forced. To override this problem, we made the decision to film people as they were coming through departures without letting them know at first and instead, asking them once we had filmed them if they would allow us to use the footage we had of them. We made it very clear that if they did not want to be in it we would delete what we had filmed of them, or equally, if they didn't mind, that it would only be used for  our A-level course only and not for any other purposes. Thankfully everybody we filmed was happy for us to use the footage we had of them.

Chapefield shopping centre:

After filming at the airport we then made our way to Chapelfield, Here we got the following shots:

·Large crowds in order to make the airport look more crowded and busier.

· Shops Plus which could be in the duty free section of the airport so it would still look realistic.

·A shot of people going up an escalator

- All of which we had also planned prior to filming.

We did however also shoot a shot which we had not planned of some people in a cafe which worked well. 

Outcome:

From today, I personally, have learn't the importance of organisation and planning during filming. As my group and I had planned some time in advance of where we were going to film, when and at what time none of us were stressed that we weren't going to complete the work on time. As we took out list of shots we wanted to get with us, we didn't waste any time and knew exactly what we were doing, therefore filming in totally took us approximately two hours. I really enjoyed today and am looking forward to editing all the footage when we return to Sixth Form.

''Love Actually'' - Production plan continued

Last lesson My group and I continued planning our recreation of the first 2-3 minutes of the film of our choice, Love Actually. We had previously decided on three locations where we would ideally like to shoot: Norwich train station, Norwich airport and Chapelfield shopping centre, also in Norwich. Therefore we spent the start of the lesson using the internet to research the telephone numbers of these places in order to ring the companies to see if they would allow us to film in their associations.  Thankfully, they all agreed and we arranged a set time and date with each of them so that they knew when to except us. After getting permission from the places where we wanted to film, we then sat down and wrote an email to our schools Deputy head Dr Fox. During the first couple of minutes of Love actually actor Colin Firth does a voice over, meaning we to needed someone to do a voice over for our recreation of the film. We decided on Dr Fox as we felt his voice was appropriate for the film. Consequently, we then wrote him an email consisting of three elements, a) asking him whether he would kindly participate b) with various times and days of when we as a group could have the time to meet him and record his voice - either during media lessons or at break and lunch. c) and finally, including a copy of the script from Love Actually stating what lines he would need to say.

The next part of the lesson was spent looking at various different clips of televisions shows such as: Gavin and Stacy and Early Doors, plus others. The purpose of this was to evaluate each scene and look at what camera shots were used and  whether they included an establishing shot, the 180 rule, diegetic/non diegetic sound and how they were edited. Doing this allowed me and my group to see how using different camera shots and techniques can be effective and made us think about what to use in our own production.

Next lesson we hope to do a storyboard of different shots for our short film, which will helps us to make it more interesting for our audience, as well as the fact when getting to our locations to shoot, our shots would have already been planned, meaning no time would be being wasted.

'Albatross' - Continuing

Since my last post on 'Albatross' my group and I had two lesson periods to go out and film a short film lasting two to three minutes, related to the title that we were given by our class teacher (Albatross). As previously posted, as a group we carried out some research in order to establish what the word 'albatross' actually meant. We discovered it was related to both good and bad luck and that it could be associated with a burden. Therefore, the plot of our short sequence involved what seemed to be a happy/successful looking career woman having a mysterious, unwanted stalker. This represented the burden, as he was constantly around her and in her thoughts. Bad luck was also mentioned in the research we looked at, so to portray this in our film we decided to use three drains which are well known to a lot of people, regardless of whether they are superstitious or not, as being unlucky. In this instance we used 'setting and props' from Mise En Scene as an effective way of subtley hinting to the audience that this man represented something bad. Furthermore, by doing this, it also meant we were foreshadowing events that happened later on in the film, which of course, were not very pleasant.

In terms of make up and costume, the man who was the stalker wore all black. Black is seen as a dark and mysterious colour, as well as being quite evil, meaning this also went well with the theme of bad luck as his appearance appeared untrusting. The career woman however was dressed in a smart business suit, emphasising her success and wealth, perhaps the stalker is jealous of her? In addition, the location too contributed in fabrigating her wealthy life style seeing as there was a high end jewellers near by, we were able to get some shots of her looking at the various pieces of jewellery on offer, implying she had enough money to afford them.

When it came to lighting, many of our shots taken where down dark, gloomy alleyways - adding to the dim, slightly scary atmosphere that we were trying to create. Tom (who played the stalker) was constantly seen appearing behind Emily (who played the career woman) indicating he is constantly in the back of her mind, never leaving her. In one particular scene, he is seen sitting on a roof top towering over Emily as she walks past. Even though in real terms Emily is above him in social status, he is above her in terms of power. When we were filming shots that involved Emily alone without Tom, we tried to make sure that within every shot was an upmarket shop/restaurant to really hit home to the audience her social class. More over, we also included Tom in a lot of background shots, with Emily in the foreground, as we wanted to ensure the audience knew of his continuous presence. - so where characters where placed within the frame was of big importance.
Lastly, the facial expressions used by the stalker were always blank-faced with a strong undeterd stare. As though he is fixated with watching her. His eyes were also squinting to give off a look of evil. The body language he used went well with his facial expressions, he often had his hand in his pockets representing his dominance and once again control over her.
Overall I feel we used the five elements of Mise En Scene well and in my personal opinion achieved getting our point across to the audience about what was going on in the film and the way in which the characters were portrayed. Having said this, the quality of our filming was not always consistent as some shots are rather clumsy. However we did the best we could within the time scale that we were given.