DIRECTIONS: Editing My Scenes & More Feedback

I started editing my clips on Thursday and so far the film is looking good. I have strayed away from the script slightly by mixing some sections around, in the script it starts with the time passing and then it goes onto the disappearing photos and sending the emails. However, when I was putting it together I decided that it would help make the idea of the time passing better if the seasons scenes were in amongst the emails. 

DIRECTIONS: Television Drama 2

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National Treasure is a four-part British television drama by Channel 4 in 2016. It was written by Jack Thorne and directed by Marc Munden. It is about a well-known TV personality who was accused of raping a 15 year-old girl years ago. His wife and daughter stand with him the whole way through the court case to the very end, only for the audience to find out that he did abuse the girl all those years ago. 

DIRECTIONS: Testing My Ideas

There were a couple of things I needed to test to see if they went to plan. I needed to test the falling snow, the disappearing photos and filming in the dark. I filmed the reflection of snow falling on shoot day 1 and it didn't go as well as planned as the reflection wasn't strong enough and its difficult to see what it is. After a bit of research and asking around I borrowed a snow machine and bought the liquid and covered a section of the garden outside the bedroom window. Once I did this I took a shot of the snow from the door and the idea is to use this shot just after my actress put her coat and hat on. This isn't quite as impressive as how they handle it in the original film but it still gives the idea that its winter. 

DIRECTIONS: Shoot Day 2

Ideally, I wanted to get my filming done in one day as we had the whole day for it, but we didn't realise how long some bits would take and one of my actors couldn't make the first day so I had to schedule another shoot for the following day. This day consisted of re-shooting a couple of bits from the previous day in better lighting and filming the scene outside the cinema. We had to do this scene in the dark which we tried to avoid the day before but this didn't happen.

DIRECTIONS: Director - TV

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James Edward Burrows is an American director and producer for television, best known for Will & Grace (1998), Taxi (1978), Mike & Molly (2010) and Friends (1994-1998). He's from Los Angeles, California and is married to Debbie Easton since 1997. 

DIRECTIONS: Script Development

After the first day of filming I realised I didn't think I was going to make the 6-7 minute requirement, with this in mind I looked back at the original New Moon script and picked out some more voice over and action which links in with the first script I created. My developed script is a lot better, has more story-telling in it and is slightly longer. It is only 5 pages but some of the action on the first page is longer than what it looks like written down so I should make the 6 minutes.

DIRECTIONS: Shoot Day 1 & Feedback

Today was the first filming day. It started well with lovely, sunny weather and two out of three actors were able to make it. I will re-shoot this week for the actor who was ill and couldn't make it today. The day light was great for the first scenes we shot which were the car scenes outside, however, once we got inside we lost the light a little and being shut in a room made it darker also. This meant I had an orangey tint to my look but this wasn't the worst thing because I needed that golden tint like the original film which I spoke about in my previous post, Directions: New Moon Colour Palette.

DIRECTIONS: New Moon Colour Palette

My filming had to be pushed back to the following weekend (18th and 19th Feb) because my main actor couldn't make last Sunday with a last minute emergency. This wasn't too bad because I had a commitment last Sunday which would have put us under pressure to get everything done by the evening, this week my actors and myself are free for the whole day on Sunday. This delay also let me plan even more for my shoot. A colour palette is something I needed to look at to make sure I get the same look as Weitz wanted in the original New Moon.

DIRECTIONS: Scheduling

Scheduling was an important part of my shoot because I needed to know what time we were going to meet the actors and get started. I also had to plan to be at the cinema just as it was getting dark to film the night time scenes, which I figured at this time of year was about 5 o'clock in the afternoon. Therefore, all the other work had to be done beforehand. Below is the ideal schedule of what should happen on filming day:

DIRECTIONS: Further Research Into Directing

https://filmmakermagazine.com/97615-heres-how-to-direct-catherine-hardwicke-style/

As I was researching Catherine Hardwicke for my Directions Research: Directors - Film blog post, I found part of a masterclass where Hardwicke shared her best directing tips. 

DIRECTIONS: Director - Film

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Catherine Hardwicke is a director I have been looking at to give me inspiration for my film. Hardwicke is an American film director, production designer and screenwriter. She co-wrote Thirteen with Nikki Reed, and directed Red Riding Hood (2011), Twilight, (2008), The Nativity Story (2006) and Lords Of Dogtown (2005). The opening weekend of Twilight was the biggest opening ever for a female director.

DIRECTIONS: Television Drama 1

The Moorside

For the first of my two TV dramas I have chosen to talk about the first episode of The Moorside. I was interested in it as soon as it was advertised because I find crime dramas really interesting. The fact that this was also a true story of the kidnapping of Shannon Matthews made me want to watch it even more. I watched the day it was broadcasted on BBC 1 and found it really eye-opening. The Moorside was directed by Paul Whittington, who has also directed and written The Widower (2013), Hero (2002) and Innocent Pink (2003). 

DIRECTIONS: Shot List

Below are my shot lists for my three different locations. These are the shots which I want in my film but they may change, e.g. if it rains or is too sunny and I have to change the set up of the camera. 

DIRECTIONS: Costume

Costume isn't a huge part of my film because the clothes are just normal, everyday tops, jeans and jackets. However, I still needed to consider the costume because if my actress turned up in a skirt or dress that wouldn't be the type of clothing appropriate for the character she is playing.

CONTEXTUAL STUDIES: Representation & Race (Lecture)

In this weeks contextual studies lecture we looked at representation and race. To start with we watched the pilot episode of two different sitcoms - Love Thy Neighbour and Black-ish. 

DIRECTIONS: Props & Making Them Disappear

As I mentioned in the Directions: Project Research blog post I have a couple of props which I need to sort out. The main ones are the photos of Bella and Edward which disappear in the film. I asked my actress to send me some photos of her with a boy I know, Richard Whatley, to be Edward.

CONTEXTUAL STUDIES: Authorship & Auteurs (Lecture)

As I was ill for this weeks contextual studies lecture I caught up by looking and making notes of the powerpoint when it was uploaded. This weeks lecture was about authorship and auteurs. We had to research auteurs for when Louis was ill the week before so I knew the basics before looking at this powerpoint.

CONTEXTUAL STUDIES: Auteur Theory & Auteur Director Choice

The auteur theory was introduced in the late 1940's by 'New Wave' directors. It is the theory of filmmaking in which the director is viewed as the main creative force in a film. The theory was an outgrowth of the cinematic theories of Andre Bazin and Alexandre Astruc.

DIRECTIONS: DSLR Camera Workshop

Steadicam

Today's workshop was carried on from Wednesday's with the DLSR cameras. I was slightly familiar with these as I used them in my photography foundation year last year, however I had never filmed on them. I liked the look of them as they are smaller than the Sony EX that we have been using, which in public would be a little less obvious. Ferg explained the pro's and con's to the DSLR's which were that they give a good picture and you can get a professional look and feel with these, however, they don't pick up audio very well.

DIRECTIONS: Development

Creating the seasons
After taking my script apart and making notes, I have figured out that I will create the illusion of snow falling. I think this will look more realistic than seeing patches of white on the floor. To do this I will have an object such as a glass candle or simply a blank wall, shine a light onto it and sprinkle salt in front of the light, if I set the camera on this for a couple of seconds this will imply that it is snowing outside.