Filming During the Week

On Monday, I handed in my film, however there were a few shots that were missing that I needed to complete before the test block period tomorrow. The shots that I had left were the shot of the grave, of my dad putting on the gloves and the scene of Mary and Eric talking. 

I completed them in the afternoons on Monday and Tuesday, but the shots of my brother and I didn't turn out the way I had hoped. They were a bit rushed as we had barely any daylight and the shots were not as bright as how I would have liked them to be, due to the fact that the sun was beginning to set. I also finished recording my audio for the film and put together all of the music. I am mostly happy with the audio, particularly in the beginning of the film: I think the voiceover describing the events of the household look really cool with the shots over the top. Here are some of the shots I took during the week:

Editing and Filming: Week 8

Over the weekend, I finished filming all of the shots of Mary and her father on the journey, Mary at home and the older Mary at the desk, leaving me with the scene of Mary and Eric, and a few extra shots left to film. I was expecting to have the film completed over the weekend, however filming the bit with my dad took a little linger than expected, plus filming was delayed because of stuff that happened at home. This means that I have to film as much as I can over the long weekend to get it finished. 

I'm not as happy with the shots that I took this weekend, mostly because I was rushing a bit, however there are a few that I like. Here are some examples of the shots that I took:

Shooting, Editing and Feedback: Week 7

On Monday afternoon, I filmed the majority of the shots that I could do at home that did not require bright lighting, which were the shots of my dad. I like how they turned out - the ones of him laying on the bed eating popcorn were exactly how I pictured them. However, I did make a change from the shot list as I ended up having the shot just of my dad, and not me walking in as I had planned. This was because I thought that the planned shot didn't look as good and it would have been too long for my film anyway. 

During class today, I edited the shots from Monday afternoon and I was a bit unsure of how to colour correct them in the same style as Anderson. This is because they are a blue tone, rather than the usual orange tone, and because they're a bit darker than my other, overexposed shots. When I edited them in class, the blue was way too dark and did not suit the style of the film, however with some help from Mr Andrews, I was able to transform it into a more pastel and light blue, which is what I was after. Here is one of the shots below:

The only thing that I would change about this shot is the fact that the bed frame is crooked, however I think that if I made it straight, dad would have been crooked instead of sitting straight. If I have time at the end of the project, I may re-film this, however it is not a priority at the moment.

I also filmed shots of the letter on Monday afternoon, however I will be re-filming them another time as I don't like the way that I have written it - my handwriting does not suit the aesthetic. I will be re-doing it with cursive handwriting to make it better resemble the letters in Wes Anderson's films.

At the end of the week, we had lesson where we watched everybody's rough edits, guessed the auteur that they were creating their film in the style of, and gave them feedback. All but one person guessed correctly that my auteur was Anderson and the main feedback that I received was that the story was not clear, however my colour correcting was good. I kind of hoped that I had gotten a bit more feedback as it obvious that I only had a small portion of the film for my rough edit meaning that it wasn't going to make sense, but I will just ask other people for feedback later on when the film is more put together.

Over the weekend, I will be filming a lot! I aim to finish the scenes of the journey, which I don't think will take too long, and then finish the scenes at home. I am glad that I couldn't film at school - I think my shots turned out better quality than if I were to have rushed them during the lesson, and I have been able to film at the exact locations that I wanted, rather than filming at alternatives on campus. It has also allowed me to edit and receive a lot of feedback during class, which has made the editing of my film look a lot better than previous assignments and my time management is a lot better as I am editing as I go, rather than leaving it to the last minute. I think that my time management has improved so much compared to last year and the year before as I am actually editing throughout the entire time of the project, rather than rushing it at the end, and I am so glad that I have done this because it is better quality and I am not stressed at all about the assignment.

Colour Correcting

Today during class, I spoke to Mr Andrews about my colour correcting to get his feedback on what I had done so far. He told me that my colour was a little overdone and suggested that I make it a little less yellow so that it better suits Wes Anderson's aesthetic. This is the colour I am going for:

Here are the changes I've made with the colour:

I think that the colour correction of the new shots look a lot better, less saturated and more like Wes Anderson, especially when compared to the shots above from Moonrise Kingdom. I don't think I will be able to film again this weekend (I might only be able to do a couple of shots), but I will be filming throughout the week in the afternoon to finish the scenes which will be shot at home. That means that I will probably have to wait until the weekend after to film the rest of the shots in the field as it would be way too dark filming them at 4/5pm.

Book Cover

This afternoon, I created the book cover that I will be using for the autobiography. I am not completely happy with how the design turned out, however I think it will be okay as it is only shown twice in the film. I may change it again before I film the shots of it, however I don't think I will have time to reshoot the photo and edit it again before I film the scenes at home.

Editing Footage from Weekend

During class today, I edited the footage that I took on Sunday. The tracking shots were very shaky when I imported them, but the stabilisation edit on Final Cut worked amazingly to hide it - I was actually surprised at how well it worked. There are a few shots that I will need to retake, and there are some shots that I didn't take according to the shot list as I wasn't able to due to differences in setting/a different shot looked better and I am happy with them. An example of this is the shot of myself in front of the slide (pictured below) as I was originally going to have the camera positioned between two bars, but the playground I ended up filming at did not have this.

Below are three of my favourite shots that I have taken so far that I am really happy with.

I love this shot of the sticky tape dispenser so much - it turned out exactly how I pictured it to to be and I think that it really suits the aesthetic of Wes Anderson's films, especially because of the colour and the fact that it is symmetrical.

This is another shot that I really like. It is a tracking shot that moves forward to track the characters movement and I originally thought it would be too shaky to be able to fix and use in my film, however it turned out really smooth! 

I think that this extreme wide shot also represents Wes Anderson's aesthetic and style really well.

Filming Over the Weekend

Today's filming definitely did not go to plan. I ended up going out a lot later than I had planned (I left home at 1pm instead of in the morning), which meant that I only had a couple of hours to film before it started getting dark. Also, a lot of time was wasted at the beginning as I struggled to get the Gimbal to operate properly.

I set it up and turned it on, stabilising it via the app, and it was working perfectly... for about five seconds. It started spinning every time I held it straight up without moving it and it was not doing what it was designed to do. I tried turning it off and back on again *numerous times* and every single time I tried, it started vibrating and I didn't know how to stop it. I gave up and decided to use the hand held stabiliser instead which wasn't the best, but it still worked better than if I were to have just held the camera in my hands.

I didn't get all of the shots that I had planned on getting, so next weekend I will be going out and filming all that I should have gotten done today, and I will make sure to be out early so I can spend as much time as I need to on it without worrying about bad lighting in the afternoon.

I will be editing all of these shots during my next lesson and hopefully I have a few that I like and am happy to use in my film.