Individual Production Log

First of all as my main responsibilities in the role in this movie is to do all of the camera work and directing. So i need to make sure that the visuals for the movie go hand in hand with the plot and storyboard for the film as a whole. Directing is difficult as you really having to bring your imagination out to show that you understand the storyboard and collaborate ideas with the rest of the group to receive an outcome that would look pleasing for an audience and viewers.

I started with Looking through the planning of the film, as the film is based on a Film Noire style, I knew that the film would be based around a case or a crime that has been committed, so I researched more into Film Noire and what to expect when we make our own trailer.

We have the idea to take an existing story from the game L.A Noire and adapt on it to make it our own. The story is based on a case named Reefer Madness and we have worked around it to take influence but then add our own twists and development.

The storyboard has been made and I am currently adapting on it and seeing what sort of video work and directory I can get out of the plot and how it will look, I am sensing plenty of dark scenes due to the plot of crime.

I have given the detectives different names, I looked up some mediocre names for detectives, which lead me to the result of Hutch and Dale.

First day of filming went well, I have filmed our actors in plenty of locations in kingston Upon Thames, we have been allowed access to use the stockroom of Londis from the manager, we have used this to film some scenes of the detectives searching through the merchandise for the result of it looking like it would be Unilever HQ.

Day 2 of filming we tried to film a toy car in order to make it seem like a real Police car travelling through with the detectives inside. I came up wth the idea of only filming the wheels for a big more of an artistic effect, though the toy car looked way to stupid so we scrapped the plan and did some more filming of the actors.

I then filmed a real set of car wheels which came out great as a single scene, had good depth and knew it would look nice as a black and white piece of camerawork.

Personal Treatment

Personal Treatment

My role in the Film Noir trailer was camera work. I filmed shot by shot putting together the film, I also was the director of the trailer too.Our short film is about a suspected drug incident being looked into by two detectives named Hutch and Dale. The story shows cocaine being produced and sold inside of pots of popular British snack Pot noodle, the brand being owned by Unilever, the two detectives look into the case to track down who is in charge of this process and take down and remove all products and paraphernalia. They work alongside a man very familiar in the town, known to have taken plenty of drugs in his time to find out where to find the guy producing this drug.

Due to the film being related to Film noir, I as camera and director chose to make it black and while but also give it more of a neo-noir style by including more recent and modern day references. The film is overall based and adapted on a story inside of the game ‘LA NOIR’ in which the story used the idea of disguising marijuana in soup cans. We changed it up by choosing a product that was more modernised but still has the same kind of feel as the soup story. By changing the marijuana to cocaine also makes it more of a relatable drug to modern day society as after doing research, it is currently the most popular drug in the UK.

During filming I will be sure to make sure I have a good use of aperture, making things seem further away by blurring the background and focussing on the item or person in front. I will hope to do this with a scene we are planning to do in the back of Londis Store in Kingston, they have allowed us to use their space to play it out as if it is Unilever HQ stock room. My plan is to have Pot Noodles in boxes, whilst focussing on them, I will have the two detectives approaching the Pot Noodles but whilst they’re travelling, have them blurred out to focus on the Pop Noodle branding.

Using shots such as the two detectives approaching the Unilever HQ can also work out well because it shows brand awareness to the product that we are using in the film. We are planning to acquire a lot of shots in Kingston alone, due to having all the different scenes and locations we need. We spoke to the manager of Londis in Kingston to allow use to use the space round the back of his store to do filming, we also used public alley ways and public areas to avoid being approached and told not to film, as well as filming outside of Unilever’s HQ. I plan to fit in a shot with the drug taker opening and discovering the cocaine within the Pot Noodle by a river because I like the scene setting of the outdoors.

In the pre-production for the film, Sean had made the storyboard and I looked into the storyboard to see exactly the kind of shots I would like to make using it and exploring the use of the storyboard to make drawings come to life. I had a few ideas to adapt onto the storyboard, there was a lot of very dull scenes showing the dark aspect of the plot, though I wanted to make it a bit more easy to the eye and enjoyable rather than keeping it quite raw, make it have a sense of humour to it, considering the main purpose of the film is based on finding drugs in pots of noodles.

Film Noir Project

This is my edited scene from a Film Noir project. We each were given a scene in groups in which we filmed and created using our own directing and camera angles. I was filming the scene and chose different camera shots such as filming from the perspective of the floor. I found different music clips to use as background sound, i found many but the only one I liked was the one I used as I wanted to give a mellow feel to the video, not merry or too serious, though I was unable to remove the sound of rain in the music. I added a black filter and added film splatters to give it a authentic feel, and by cutting to red with a gunshot at the end creates a lot of suspense.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NSJAYzKwOEg

Camera Techniques

Formats

There are various different types of formats, they almost work in the same way as genres because though they are all types of media, they work in different ways. A series tends to be a sequel story, mainly used in TV shows, this is when TV shows link their episodes together in a season, so the whole season tells a story episode by episode. A great example is Stranger Things, this Netflix show is almost like a movie within one season, the episodes start with a narrative which is the start of a plotline for a story, which in this case was a missing child. The show then develops and moves on episode by episode in attempt to work out what happened to this missing Boy with a result at the end of the season. This is different to a Drama such as Dr Who where it is a series but each episode is a different plotline from the last by using the same characters in each episode but solving different mysteries and introducing different characters. A one of Drama tends to be something that appears on TV as a special and doesn’t have its own series, is almost like a TV movie, a good example is ‘The Worlds Fattest Man’ which appeared on TV and told a story about a man who was so obese he was unable to leave his house, played by an actor and the whole movie went from bad to worse showing the lifestyle of this fictional character in a struggle of his life.

Narrative Structure

There are two types of narratives, Linear and Non-Linear. Linear is when a story goes in a straight line from start to finish and everything is in the right timeframe. Non-Linear is the opposite to this, so it works in a way that the story can go back and forth or from a real situation to a fictional thought. This can include flashbacks, dreams and cut-off scenes or gags displaying the past or future, or just a alternate perspective. A good example of non-linear could be My Name Is Earl, the series is based on a character named Earl who revisits his past to pay back all the different people that he did wrong to or bullied in earlier years, he then does something rewarding for them for payback. The show always shows scenes of when Earl was younger and then cutting back to the present. Linear would be similar to the TV show The Inbetweeners where everything in the episode tends to happen over a 24hour period with no disturbance, there are rarely ever any cut scenes to future or past, the show’s episodes just go from start to finish in a straight direction.

Technical

Lighting in films is used to give a perspective on what is being displayed. Dark lighting tends to be used in more of a drama style movie to show a cold and dark approach, dramas always want to show either mystery or quite a thrilling subject, it can also show time and location. So with films such as the Pirates of The Caribbean saga it focuses on Pirates set in many years ago on the stormy seas, using a dark filter on the lights really make you feel one with the movie, it draws you into the movie by making you feel as if you are there within the storm. Whether as bright lighting tends to be used often in comedies such as Superbad where it is all set in the day with a happy realistic theme set in sunny America, gives you a feel-good feeling. Sound in television and films is a key part to production, it can do so much for certain scenes, Diegetic Sound is when the sound you are hearing is represented visually on screen, such as a character scrunching a piece of paper, you would heat character scrunching it up but you would also see it, scripted dialogue for the film is also diegetic Sound, there is also a opposite term which is Non-diegetic sound which tends to be soundtracks or narrators, though sometimes soundtracks can go with a scene well and certain visuals happen at the same pace as a song would, though it is not shown visually on screen, unless the soundtrack was being recorded on the screen, diegetic and Non-diegetic sound can be used together such as a character speaking over a piece of music. In terms of different camera angles and techniques The eye level shot is a shot that you view in first person, you view it through the eyes of a character, for example if the person is laying down, you will be viewing the shot very low, this is commonly used in sit-com television series such as Peep Show, it allows the audience to feel like they are really in the moment and viewing it first hand, Action films such as Star Wars tend to use a Long-Shot camera angle method, this type of shot shows a character from a long distance with a lot of surrounding imagery such as special effects and detailed backgrounds to show representation of location. In soap Operas it is common to find a camera technique called a close-up shot, this tends to show a characters expression and isn’t always focused on for a long period of time, such as in shows like Eastenders, if some shocking news has been told by one character to another, they will take the shot from a regular two person shot to a close-up shot of the character’s reaction to the news they have been told this gives suspension and draws the audience into how the character may feel. The two person shot as I have just mentioned is a show favoured often in many of different visual medias, a common example would be a film such as Superbad where two characters are both in shot having a conversation with one another, this can be filmed over a shoulder, from a Long-Shot distance and many more different views.