During the last few weeks we have proceeded to practice and develop our media practice capabilities; both individually and as a group. Almost immediately we noticed a significant difference between GCSE and A Level media and how media as a whole requires a vast amount of creativity and individual expressive ideas.
We started off initially with the filming aspects of media. Me and my fellow group members began our filming simply by recording a short opening extract including basic camera shots and techniques. The shot involved an excited student approaching a more oblivious student (displayed by a travelling shot at a wide angle, helping set the mis-en-scene of the class room and the two students). The next shot was of the two students begining to sit down (A mid shot was used for this; yet again its basic but effective as it shows the students in more detail and there facial/body expressions more clearly). The last shot we used was more difficult and used a zoom technique to show the tensity of the dialect, "You'll never guess what...." "What...." "She did it!...." ( The zooming camera shot created tension and ended at a close up on the student using dialect, yet again the camera was set upon the tripod to ensure steadiness).
During the short time we had to produce this film piece i belive we did considerably well. When watching the final product which lasted around 10 seconds, i came across quite a few triumphs! The zooming effect i was especially happy about as i feel it expressed the tensity of the situation really well and helped display the character emotions; anxiety and excitement. Although the shots were simple and didn't display an extreme amount of technical camera shots/angles, the shots however were relevant to the topic and fitted in with the scene for instance it would irrelevant to use a high angle shot to display a person entering a room! Therefore in this sense we made all our shots relevant to the scene. Individually my role as a director was fulfilled. I was able to contact fluently with my group and direct them so that everything was perfected to the best of its ability. My Responsibility as a director meant ensuring the camera operators were prompted correctly aswell as the actors and filing ran smoothly and accordingly; this ranged from making sure the tripods were connected safely to ensuring actors knew there lines, timings and reactions. As a group i believe we also did well. Everyone responded efficiently and accordingly to the quick prompt! Next time I get the opportunity to film, i will explore every single role in more depth so that i gain a greater outlook on the filming process as a whole and not just as a director. Also Next time I will ensure we locate our scene in a more desolate area so that we are not disrupted by fellow students hence forth making out short film more realistic.
Shortly after we began to look at the next important stage of the film production process; editing. This was completely new to me and we all had to get used to the schools editing programme. We started off my uploading the film we had previously made which contained around 40 individual shots which we then had to crop, cut and insert to make the short film ( entitled 'the phone call'). This process was extremely time consuming and made me realise how much work and technique had to be used to make even the shortest clip or production. The post-production personally i believe was the hardest part of post production however necessary. After cropping clips we had to join them together to make the production run efficiently and to ensure timing was accurate, this meant in some cases re filming shots and also creating new ones!
After me and my group felt the film was presentable we began adding transactions to make the film both more interesting and more professional. We didn't want to add too many transactions so that it looked untidy so instead decided to only add transactions when a new character was introduced to the film; this way it kept the film simplistic and not too confusing for the viewers. Finally we added the begining titles and ending titles, this consisted of a black screen with childlike writing gradually floating from the left hand side of the screen to the middle, stopping for 5 seconds and then floating off to the right. We repeated this same colour scheme and entrance with the ending credits to keep a continuous theme.
The editing process of pre-production was definitely the most difficult due to the many different techniques we had to learn and apply in such a short period of time, however i believe me and my group did considerably well as we tried to made everything look presentable and keep it as simplistic and professional as we possibly could in the time we had. When attempting editing again I would ensure i have a good knowledge of the editing programme and all of the techniques of the editing process, this way i will not be time consuming by looking through the programmes contents.
Sound was the next stage of the production making process. This involved cropping, cutting and editing as well as making sure the music fit accordingly into the short film so that it didn’t run over dialect or leave blank opening and ending credits. We began by uploading the film to the sound editing programme (entitled Garageband).
We then had the option to explore the variety of sounds ,noises and rhythms the programme had to offer; this ranged from orchestral music to r&b or guitar base to funky base. After testing all the sounds suitability we began to apply our chosen music and recordings to the short film. For the first line of music we used a sound called ‘BLANK’ in the string department. We then incorporated a second line of music into the sound to play over the first; as a group we believed this made our sound more original and present our ability of overlapping diverse beats and rhythms. Lastly we used a voice record to apply into the third line; Martel’s voice, “Hello….Hello….Hello- H-H-Hello” This repeated, echoing sound added originality to our film as well as relating to the topic of our film (‘The Phone Call’). We used the same music for the ending of the play as well to yet again carry on our ‘ongoing’ theme.
I personally thought the sound practice and getting into the mind of a sound technician broadened my perspective of how much time and skills are necessary to pursue and endure a career in this department of the often alternating global media based world!
