Radio beginning using Logic Pro 01

I experimented and searched through some sounds. I was looking for something before the 60 second news update that would grasp a listener's or audience's attention. I got the inspiration from BBC THREE, 60 seconds news update  as the broadcast began there was an electronic kind of echo effect beforehand, gaining the attention of the audience. I not only want to gain attention from my protagonist but also from our TA.

These sounds are only short and small but that's all they need to be. I was searching for ages to find suitable loops that I could merge together. The clips just to the right of the  long line are the ones that I've chosen:

Experimenting with Logic Pro

The bigger looking one, that i have circled in red, I tried at first on it's own, it was an 80's style theme tune, it didn't sound right on it's own and I thought it was missing an upbeat electronic edge.

The smaller looking one, that I have circled in red, was one that I cut out of a longer electronic beating sound.

I listened to it and merged them together, making sure the timing of both sound clips transitioned smoothly onto each other. Here's the final result:

I think this has everything I want for an interruption before the news update.

It's a possible radio sound so tell me what you think and comment on any improvements, I will be asking around!

Official Filming 1

I filmed today between 10 am and roughly 7.40 pm in the rain with Patrycja's help holding the umbrella for the camera. It was very exciting, I felt like a professional camera woman! Members of the general public were smiling and looking at us, some spoke to us and asked what we were filming. That did get a bit annoying though as people seemed to try and stay on camera, even when we were taking shots of different crowds. We did politely wait for people to leave our cameras view, to get a duplicate of angle, position and type of shot for Patrycja to edit and overlap. At some points, the camera positioning did get quite cramped as I crouched down, trying not to get myself or the camera wet, holding position, making sure the camera was steady, was level via the spirit level

on the camera, that it didn't change position - so I could duplicate the shot successfully and I checked each shot individually to make sure the continuity flowed.
The only problem was that, although I had charged the camera to it's full capacity, it refused to hold out for longer than 2 hours! Thankfully I had thought this may happen and new of shops and cafe's to charge the camera. I was constantly checking on the daylight change and wanted to get slightly contrasting light to help with the clock shots. This was a repetitive process forcing us to quicken the pace of filming. It became very energy demanding rushing from shot to shot but it was so worth it!

I'm happy that the weather continuity stayed the same throughout. It was an overall successful day today and we have over 100 shots! I'm so thankful for making the filming plan as it really helped! I'm also really thankful for the story board, planning is so essential for success!

Looking forward to filming with the actors tomorrow!

Equipment for filming

Here's some pictures of the kind of equipment I'm going to be using:

Camera

Main piece of equipment, the filming wouldn't happen without it! I understand how to use the camera and it's different uses like switching it on, recording a video or taking a picture, zooming in and zooming out, setting different effects for the recording like sepia - although not going to use this it's handy to know. Our camera automatically adapts to the daylight change making it easier for me as I won't need to manually change it.

Tripod

Another very important part of equipment. It provides a multitude of angles via different levels through the adjustments and also keeps the camera steady - making my job easier. It also is great for pan's because i's steady, smooth and won't wobble; unlike if the camera was hand-held. It is quite bulking and is time consuming setting up, but I'm prepared and have planned for that for the filming.

Thanks for reading :)

Our Classification for our film

The classification decisions are all based on the BBFC's Guidelines: 

• 
  Suitable for all
• 
  
• 
• 
  Parental guidance

• 
  
• Cinema release suitable for 12 years and over
• 
  
• 
• 
  
• 
  Video release suitable for 12 years and over

• 
  Suitable only for 15 years and over

• 
  
• 
• 
  Suitable only for adults
• 
  
• 
• 
  
• Adults works for licensed premises only

BBFC Classification

I understand that our opening sequence will not fit the 'U' and 'PG' grades because children aged four will not understand or may find our Ghost uncomfortable to watch.Our film may still disturb an audience of eight or a few years older. This is why we are not giving our film a rated 'U' or 'PG'.

We believe the rating '12A' is suitable for our audience as it will allow adults to accompany 12 years or over to the cinema but will not allow a 12 year old to buy a DVD etc because our film has dark elements, ghosts. The darkness isn't highly focused on in our film, although there are some sinister moments; not intended to frighten the audience but they are just intended to cause suspense. We don't plan to have any gore or sexual acts within our movie, although, if allowed full length, there would be a small amount of swearing involved in our film. I believe our film will have more views as a '12A' because more people are allowed to watch it, it will certainly reach our TA and will thus gain more money for our company.

BBFC 12 and 12A Classification

Target Audience

We want our target audience to be unisex, aged 16 to mid 20's.

Considering the supernatural element to our Thriller-Horror (ghosts) we understand that in current times younger people seem more attracted to films and TV series involving the supernatural. This involves the 'Twilight' saga and hit TV series 'The Vampire Diaries'.

Poster from the Twilight saga's first film

Poster from The Vampire Diaries TV series 1

I myself have watched both and, as a teenager, I understand why myself and peers are attracted to this.
Both 'Twilight' and 'The Vampire Diaries' have young attractive male actors that appeal to their young female target audience. Inspired by this, our film also has young actors, which is more appealing for our audience as they can relate to similarly aged characters. 
However, we didn't just want our audience to be young women because our film has more variety; we have a male protagonist who is weaker than the supernatural - our female ghost. This highlights that humans are weaker than the supernatural also subverting the expectations of the 'dominant' male gender. In addition, as our ghost is female, is supernaturally stronger and threatens the male protagonist she subverts the expectations of the 'subordinate' female gender; connoting a gender power struggle. This power struggle is designed to intrigue a unisex audience through the conflict of gender and conflict between the supernatural.

I understand the relevance to our TA and have researched the NRS social grades:

NRS social grades

Our setting was originally in Central London targeted at  a B-D grade audience. However, both complications with filming and realisations of the change in setting helped us understand and develop on our target audience more. Now, our setting being in Camden, we realise that targeting a young audience may not effect their social class as much because they will generally still be living with their families or living on University campuses as they are mostly still in education. We also understand that the area is urban and are purposefully targeting a more urban younger audience. Camden is a diverse multicultural area with variety, this is why we have chosen not to focus entirely on a specific ethnicity. Our TA can easily identify that the location is in the London area, if watching from abroad, and Camden's local community will also familiarise with it, which will help draw interest from our TA.
Although both of our actors are pale skinned we do not intend this to affect our target audience and realise that some ethnic backgrounds will favour our film more than others, like European ethnicity's. In addition, we aren't  heavily focusing on social class but understand that our type of film will attract a B-D grade audience; considering the ranges of family income's and social classes.

We wanted to follow a masculine stereotype of our protagonist - drinking a beer - to appeal to our young male audience. We want the under 18's to look up or aspire to him as he is older, suggested through the alcohol, being inclined to follow him as a main character. We want the over 18's to see him as their equal, someone who they can relate to and understand, via the suggestion of age through the alcohol, making him 'one of the lads'. 
He is also suggested to live at home or have some form of student accommodation. This would show the audience that he is independent and would help them aspire to be like him. We wanted our TA to relate to him as a peer considering that a large amount of our TA will be in education.
We didn't want to give away our protagonist as it is the beginning of the film and following a convention we want the audience to wonder who the characters are, their connection, their significance and generally act as part of a narrative hook for our TA.
Our male audience would be intrigued by the female ghost, firstly acting on a possible attraction to her as she is female and secondly, as she is a mysterious character - they will  want to know her intentions and connection with the protagonist.
Our female audience would relate to the female ghost initially via common grounds of her age and sharing the same gender. They may also relate to her via her costuming, white t-shirt and denim jeans, and will be interested in her character as she has blood stains and is of the supernatural. We wanted her to have blonde hair because it goes against the stereo type of having an unintelligent female. Having supernatural power - being a ghost - would make her seem more authorative and intellectual. This would help our audience realise not to underestimate or undermine her as a character because she is of the supernatural and, via her actions, is unexpected; giving her character a sense of mystery.

We aren't heavily focusing on out TA music interest because there is so much variety and we realise that our TA will listen to various genre's and styles of music. Having our protagonist listen to music on a radio station re-iterates his youth, as younger people are highly interested in music and it's variety. With an instrumental playing, interrupted by the news update, we didn't want to highly focus on a type of music genre - fitting to our TA, and we understand that Radio's do interrupt the music or begin updates after a song has finished playing - I have researched this in a previous post.

Ghost's Costume

We edited our Ghost's costume and used:

Fake blood 1

Fake blood 2

Scissors

To create:

End result of T-shirt

End result of jeans

Hope you like it! We certainly do!

Chosen Actors

After our auditions, we decided who would be our characters:

Marlena = Female Ghost

Marlena suits the role perfectly! She has a brilliant serious face, is obedient when asked to act, is blond and has long hair, has intense eyes, has the right body shape, the right height and is a pleasure to work with. 

Jack = Male Protagonist

Jack also suits the role perfectly! He is tall, is obedient when acting, can act very distressed and serious easily, can use the exact same movements each time acting which help with continuity, has a masculine facial structure and is a joy to work with.

I'm looking forward to filming with these two!

Our character costumes

We initially wanted our female ghost's costume to be similar to the girl in 'The Grudge', wearing a white night gown. This would make her a ghost from decades ago, but the film is set in the modern day, these two different time zones could be confusing for the audience with the connection of the ghost and the present day. This means that we would have to display a flash back or brief history to reveal to the audience that she is from the past; which would help make her character clearer. However, I realised that this would take up too much filming time and would also 'eat up' the precious 2 minute limit we have for our opening sequence.

Therefore, we changed her costume as we wanted the ghost to be modern, fitting with the time period.

She now will wear jeans, a white T-shirt and plain black shoes; looking like a fairly normal girl.

The twist in our costume is that her white top will have rips and blood stains in it and her jeans will also be ripped and blood stained. This is to communicate or suggest to the audience that she was murdered and is a ghost. Her makeup will consist of pale foundation, to achieve a pale complexion - a stereotype for ghosts, and a dark purple eye-shadow smudged around the eyes to create her bruises. The new costume is used to make a more intimidating, creepy character. The audience may also find her creepy because she is relatively normal looking and it could make them feel wary when out in the streets.

Our male protagonist's costume is fairly plain to reflect him as an 'Average Joe' type of guy. This will also create a sense that anyone could be targeted by the Ghost. His costume consists of a white top, orange hoodie, and black winter jacket layered together with denim jeans and white trainers.

I was also thinking that he could have a beer bottle as a prop, displaying that he is over 18 and is stereotyped as masculine. It is also a good idea to have this prop because it gives him an excuse to walk away from the ghost - thinking it's the alcohol. 

We don't need to change or edit our protagonist's costume. We only need to edit our Ghosts one to add the rips and blood. I'm looking forward to doing this with Patrycja and seeing the outcome!

Radio Report Script 3

As we've changed the location of our filming and costume of our female ghost I needed to edit the dialogue for the Radio report script. After making the necessary changes and printing the script I realised that any Radio broadcast that wanted the public's contact would give their contact information.

I annotated it and made the next changes:

Here's the newer version:

Good evening all you Londoner's! I'm Dawn Cope and you're listening to Lookout Radio's sixty second news updates

Have you recently seen anything unusual? We have reports  of sightings in Camden Town of a young female, early teens, wearing a ripped, blood stained, white t-shirt and ripped blood stained denim jeans. She is said to have marks across her face, possibly abrasions or bruising. She is also said to have long blond matted hair.

If you believe you have seen this girl, or someone of a similar description,please do not hesitate, report immediately to your local Police Station and Lookout Radio.

Our telephone is, 0800 454 6712, that's, 0800 454 6712. You can also contact us on our website www.lookoutradio.co.uk/contact

Headlining today's 'More Money Than Sense' is Katie Price who has recently bought a new nine and a half thousand pound Loui Vuitton hand bag says, "It's a splash of cash for my little Princess"

The contact information in this Radio Report is fabricated and is not intended to be similar or the same as any living individual or company.

I do realise that this is just the dialogue for the script and I will be configuring the final one after composing more sounds for it.

Thanks for following, feedback is much appreciated :)

My Layout and Plan for Filming

After previous experiences of the impact of poor planning for filming I decided to create a thorough plan for the filming. I also divided into sections the aspects - busy crowds, traffic, market stalls etc - that I wanted to film to help me understand and be precise with what should be targeted. Saturday is when most of the filming will take place. I know that it will take the whole day to cover everything on the list and thankfully considering the daylight change and continuity, the shots of the clock changing will come in handy - helping the narrative make sense when edited together. In filming, the shots can look a bit sporadic when layed out because not everything goes to plan; there may be a new interesting shot that I didn't think of previously when creating the storyboard or shot list, there may equally be a shot that I can't use due to the impracticality of it etc. I've realised that too much filming is better than too little filming because the more material available grants the editor more to work with. I accept that there will be a large amount of the filming that will be discarded, but I understand that all of the shots are vital for creating the best opening sequence. I'm sure I will make mistakes in the filming, like accidently nudging the camera and having to re-film a shot again, also having to re-film a shot numerous times because of bad continuity. I realise that, as a large and vastly populated area, Camden will be crowded and I will have to wait a while in some shots when doing double shots for the ghosts because I don't want the same people in them - creating bad continuity. I'm prepared for any unplanned, spontaneous shots and I'm really looking forward to the filming!

It's forecast to rain on Saturday - perfect pathetic fallacy for our beginning sequence and narrative - although quite a difficult task for filming...I'm sure I'll get through it! I'm starting filming at 10am and don't expect to finish until approximately 7.30pm.

For Sunday's filming, Patrycja and our actors will be joining me. It's again forecast to rain and I've made sure we will all be wrapped up warm and have umbrella's at the ready! The timing is essential and we are scheduled to meet up at 5pm at Camden station when it's a darker setting. I have taken into consideration that our female ghost will need some prep for adding the ghostly makeup and Patrycja and I have made sure we have the right type of makeup - dark eye-shadow and pale foundation - including the costume. I hope that we will all get to the filming and won't be distracted by conversation or anything and will just get to work!

Anyway, here's my plan hope you like it!

Keep following and feel free to feedback thanks :)

Sound Experimentation 2

I've experimenting with the ambient city sounds more and asked Patrycja to listen with me:

Picture of Patrycja and me listening

I really like what I've come up with here's the sound:

Here's some feedback from it:

I think it creates the tension for the audience and the busy atmosphere that cities have. It's almost like it's got a rhythm to it, a heartbeat, which is why I like it. But I'm not sure if we are actually going to use it yet because we may change to an easier location with the filming, which will slightly impact the atmosphere and thus the non-diagetic sound.

I also really like the exhale that I found on Logic Pro, I hope it's good enough for our opening sequence's titles.

Here it is:

Let me know what you think to it via comment or I might just have to interview you!

Sound Experimentation 1

Whilst Patrycja was editing for our first filmed clips, I took initiative to experiment with Logic pro. I wanted to find any ambient city sounds that could be merged together to add to a clip; cars, traffic, overlapping conversations etc. I also wanted to find the sound of someone exhaling for the title as it fades out. I think this would be eerie for the audience as it's a normal sound, slowed, and used in a creepy way; possibly linking to our ghosts theme. It also reiterates that the titles are fading, like breath leaves the body. Anyway it's just a thought.

Here's a screen shot of what I found:

Experimenting with Logic Pro

I'm starting to get the hang of Logic Pro more as I experiment. I will be uploading the sounds I am considering using soon, but if I'm not satisfied with the exhale I will just have to record it myself!

Filming in Central

As a company we shot our first section of filming. We already wanted to film in Central London so we went to Marble arch via the 113 bus route

and began filming traffic, crowds, traffic lights etc. It was amazing! It was such fun! We went around loads of different locations, from Marble arch to Trafalgar square to Big Ben to the London Eye. Although it was fun, at the end I was a bit disappointed as we hadn't got as many shots as we could of because of the time consuming travelling. I don't think I did so well at being in charge of filming as I should have planned in more detail.
I know our next time filming will be allot better because I will thoroughly plan for it!

Storyboard

Here's the storyboard that Patrycja did:

It looks very detailed and well thought out. I'm looking forward to using it during filming!

Radio Report Script 2

After recording the script using the camera myself, I uploaded the video's onto Premier Pro today. Patrycja and I then listened to the clips and discussed which ones to use:

Listening to first recordings of 'Radio Report', using Premier Pro

Having discussed, we realised that we needed to change the script as it didn't seem flow properly. This is shown in the following.

Firstly, we annotated it:

Amendments made to 'Radio Report'

Secondly, we made the changes in Microsoft Office Word:

Good evening, all you Londoner’s! I’m Dawn Cope and you’re listening to ‘Look out’ Radio’s 60-second news updates

Have you recently seen anything unusual?
We have reports of sightings in Oxford Street of a young female, early teens, wearing a ripped, blood stained, white night gown.
She is said to have marks across her face and skin, possibly abrasions or bruising.
She is also said to have long dark, matted hair.
If you believe you have seen this girl, or someone of a similar description, please do not hesitate, report immediately to your local Police Station and Lookout Radio…

Heading today’s 'More Money Than Sense' is Katie Price, who has recently bought a new 9 and a half thousand pound handbag and says it’s “a splash of cash for my little Princess”

Thirdly, I recorded it again and uploaded it to Premier Pro:

Listening to second recording of 'Radio Report', using Premier Pro

Hopefully we are done with editing the script!

Feedback appreciated, keep following thanks :)

Analysing Film Openings 5

North By North West film poster

I briefly watched North By North West's Opening Sequence because I admire Alfred Hitchcock's style and was intrigued by how he began this film especially as it has elements of the Thriller genre.

I really enjoyed watching the beginning as Hitchcock establishes the location immediately. I enjoyed the short animation before, in green, as the lines were drawn and smoothly transitioned through a fade effect to the reflection of traffic on a skyscraper. The audience understand that it is a city by targeting specific buildings, like sky scrapers, using the reflections on the windows to see ongoing traffic, targeting specific streets and vehicles i.e. America's notorious yellow taxi cabs, targeting busy crowds and specific people to display the hardship, busy and almost unkind atmosphere a city can be. I found this really insightful and an inspiration to start the film focusing on location first, especially as I would like to recreate a busy city atmosphere too.

I've been thinking that, to also target London and make it seem clearer, I could film on a rainy day - not only is it pathetic fallacy for a negative event or happening, but England's weather is notorious for rain.

Here's a BBC weather report

This would be a really interesting shot to take, to establish the location through a LS and window reiterating that the audience is watching, although I'm not sure if I would be able to because of the location and time it would take to travel would be very challenging. It might be too far fetched for our opening sequence at the moment but it's an interesting idea for an establishing shot.

I really want to included shots with London's red buses as it helps establish the location. I also would like to take shots of crowds holding umbrellas to help show that it is raining through the ms-en-scene even if the camera doesn't pick it up and to display the effect that nature has over man; helping create a realistic atmosphere.

However, I can't rely on the weather as it's unpredictable and we could waist valuable filming time. It would be ideal to film in the rain as the pathetic fallacy would be perfect, although not ideal filming conditions, I am willing to not film in the rain if it provides good filming that Patrycja could work with in editing.

Final Title for Opening Sequence

I found that the naming of our film wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Patrycja and I both wanted something that would fit with our story-line and would also go with the theme of ghosts. Yes, the element of revenge is heavily focused upon in our synopsis, however, we didn't want the title to be 'Revenge' as it would give away the main theme. I wanted to focus upon the fact that we have a ghost in our opening sequence. So, we both considered our own ideas for the title. This did take a while as we wanted to be very specific. I mean we wanted the title to provoke intrigue and suggest an element of suspense, whilst also using a font or graphic effect to set the pace for the audience and help them identify what our genre is and what our film will contain via the title. I came up with 'The Forgotten', as ghosts are people who have passed away and remain stuck in the world possibly for so long that society forgets them - it seems to be appropriate for our narrative, as our unnamed female ghost is trapped and is forgotten by society until the events within our opening sequence occur.

Concerning the look of our title we both wanted something edgy that seemed either unnatural or have an eerie sense when seen. Mulling over a selection of fonts from Patrycja's research on fonts we then decided to agree on this:

I really like the aesthetic of the title because it's, faded, smudged, has a broken glass effect on some letters, some splatter effects, seems used, dirty, seems unnaturally crafted, seems intimidating and gripping; provoking intrigue. I think it is perfect for our story-line, fitting the genre, the unnatural element in our film and really gives a feel that something isn't right, there is disequilibrium and a sense of impending doom for the audience.

We both wanted to use a black font colour and not red because that is associated with the Horror genre, also we enjoyed the look of the black because it gives an impression of something dark, mysterious, it gives our title an edge, adds intrigue and is used to create an inhuman eerie atmosphere.

I hope you've enjoyed my thoughts on this and our developments so far, thanks :)