Small Change

We have decided as a group that our film should no longer be set in the 1950's but instead have it modern . Our reasoning behind this is because it makes matters a lot harder such as, finding a suitable location, the correct props, clothing and hairstyles as well as keeping everything consistent. Therefore in order to make things easier for us we decided that producing a modern trailer would be more beneficial.

  Another reason behind our change of era was because last year with my previous group I produced a short film opening set in the 1940's, as our location had double glazed windows and modern features such as TV's we did get marked down for this and found the work to be more of a task rather than being enjoyable.

  By producing a modern trailer, as a group, I think we will find filming, editing and producing the trailer more enjoyable. We will also be able to work upon our ideas and create ones that we are able to achieve without having to worry about the time era or minor problems. 

Outtakes

These are some of the other frames I took whilst filming for our film poster. I found it to be a challenge to get all of the boys looking at the camera at the same time or pulling a serious face. I tried different stances and positioning yet didn't experiment too much with different angles as i felt eye-level worked well. Overall I was really pleased with the shots we got but it took us, as a group, a while to decide on which picture to eventually choose. We were very fond of the first picture, with the spade in it, but it was too bright. (Although this wouldn't be a problem to edit on Photoshop). We were also fond of the picture of 'Little Man' sitting on the wall yet we thought this clashed with the typical conventions too much as wasn't gangster-like as a typical gangster wouldn't be seen creasing their suit up.
 

 

Mug Shots

We had previously made mug shot cards as props for our trailer, we did this with the intention of the characters holding their card as if they were being sentenced in prison. We got each boy to hold their cards in front of them with there characters name on it and the name of the prison they are going to. We took an eye-level and side profile shot. We researched into mug shots to ensure we captured the corrected frame. We chose to take the pictures in front of the green screen as it gave us more freedom when it came to editing, we also wanted to add a mug shot background into the shot with the height marking in it to make it look more realistic. We are going to experiment with these pictures for our film poster, even though we have a shot, just to ensure we are using the correct photograph. We could also use one of these shots for our magazine cover.

Neko 'Little Man' Brown

Charles 'Pretty Boy' Floyd

Tony 'Don' Milano

Johnny 'Machine Gun' Doyle

 

Vinnie 'Mad Dog' Smith

Chosen Picture for the Poster

This is the picture we have chosen for our Poster. We chose this particular picture instead of the other shots we took as all the boys were looking directly at the camera. We chose to take this picture as a mid-shot as the background detail remains minimal as the location will be established later in the trailer/film. We also chose to take it as an eye-level shot as it shows the subjects as we would expect to see them in real life and is a fairly neutral shot. When I was taking these pictures i referred back to a previous blog i had done on 'The Gaze', I did this because the stance and engagement of the characters is essential, especially for  film poster. We chose to use a direct address this is where 'the gaze of a person (animal or object) shown in the text looking ‘out of the frame’ as if at the person watching the film or reading the magazine'. My reasoning behind this is because it makes the characters appear looming and sinister, this conforms to the typical gangster conventions and stereotype.  The stance and positioning of our characters was very important as we wanted to show the authority within the group. We  made sure we had 5 boys when it came to filming as the positioning and symmetry was important when it came to group shots during filming and especially pictures. In my opinion a poster with a group/gang on the front is more appealing when it is symmetrical grasping more attention. We obviously had the boss, Tony 'Don' Milano, at the front in the middle and his men around him to show that they worked for him, this is similar to the GoodFellas film poster.  

 We chose this specific location as we wanted our picture to appear as a facade, juxtaposing the men in smart suits with typical estate in the background which follows the conventions of the usual meeting places for gangsters. Although we didn't want to capture a lot of the background, as we didn't want the focus of the background to challenge the focus of our characters, we were aware that the background did play an important role. We chose to use natural lighting as it made the picture look quite gloomy which we thought worked well, we thought about using a spotlight but didn't think it would give us the effect we were aiming for. To make sure we didn't want to use additional lighting I used the fill flash on my camera to compare with the natural lighting to ensure we were making the correct choice. After comparing the two pictures we remained with our initial decision as the fill flash made the picture too bright which didn't correspond to our theme as well.

  Finally we chose to take away the colour and use black and white. I did this on photoshop by removing the colour and adjusted the input levels so the picture appeared more sharp and all minor details were visible. As we want to limit our colour palette when it comes to creating our poster and magazine cover, we feel that having our poster in black and white will be more effective. Although this seems a little bland we plan to add a tag line to our poster which will make it eye-catching.

Before:

 

After:

 

Chosen Gangster Names

When it came to choosing the names for our Gangsters we had to do a lot of research to ensure we were going down the right path. We wanted to use nick names to allude the audience so they are able to know our characters personalities before seeing them in the film, this is where the nick names were useful. We also had to be careful that the names hadn't been used before in other films as that would be copying therefore we based the names around the looks of our characters as well as the typical personalities seen in a Gangster film. Although stressful at times we had a lot of fun researching and actually deciding on the names of our Gangsters as it is a very important part of our trailer. We also had to think up names as we wanted to make mug shot cards, I have previously posted a picture, with the Gangsters names on them as we will use these when it comes to filming and use them on our poster.

The names we have chosen are:

Tony 'Don' Milano

Charles 'Pretty Boy' Floyd

Vinnie 'Mad Dog' Smith

Neko 'Little Man' Brown

Johnny 'Machine Gun' Doyle

Pre Filming - London

On the 19th and 20th February I went up to London to do some photography and filming for our media trailer. I had in mind getting shots of average day to day life of cars on the road, trains pulling away from the station and people walking in the street/across bridges etc. Although this all sounds a little boring when it comes to editing we were going to speed up the clips so we had a variety of shots and so they showed the location and were an establishing shot. As i was going to speed the clip up I had to film for at least a minute or more so the clip was the appropriate length. I went to Brick Lane Market as it is always busy there with lots going on and people constantly walking past, this was an ideal place for me to film. I also filmed around Spitterfields Market as that was another location which was really busy. I filmed the traffic in Shepard's Bush Market and near Upminster station which was also quite busy. My favourite shot I got on that day was of the people passing over the Millennium Bridge, which is also seen in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, as it is highly recognised and has a wonderful view of St.Paul's Cathedral in the background and the River Thames underneath. I chose to film in London as our film is a typical British Gangster film and we wanted to make this clear so it doesn't get mistaken for an American Gangster film.

 Not only did I film and take pictures of locations in London but I also kept an eye out for the sort of cars you would see in a typical Gangster film to get a good idea of what we should be aiming for etc. (Although it would be really hard for us to get hold of an old fashioned car like the first picture and probably even hard to find a Lamborghini!) But on the otherhand it helped with my research and made my day even more interesting. As a group we are steering away from the idea of our film being set in the 50's as from past experiences I have learnt that setting a film in a different era is incredibly hard and consistency is very important. As the footage I have filmed in London is obvious that it is very modern, setting the theme in the present seems to be a good idea and would definitely give us a better outcome. Although the pictures I have taken wont help with the filming we could possibly use them for making the magazine front cover of poster. 

Pre-Filming Preparation

We plan to film our footage for our film trailer during the February half term. We chose to film during half term as we would have longer to film and more daylight instead of filming after school where we would only have a limited amount of time. Another advantage for filming in the half term is if filming goes wrong we will have enough time to film again or add to what we already have.

  We have drawn a storyboard that we are able to refer back to when filming but we haven’t yet finished the music to accompany our film trailer. Our reasoning for this is that we would like to put the trailer cuts together and then create the music around the timing and scenes that are taking place. We are going to use our storyboard as a guideline to avoid disorganization but as a group we do not think we will stick to it completely. We may add or take away certain cuts to improve the trailer. We have also put together an additional list of shots and angles we wish to include in our trailer to avoid making mistakes and ensure we are using a variety of shots.

 When it came to choosing the equipment we are going to use, we all used a video camera for our AS coursework and feel that this is the best thing to use when filming our trailer and we will also be using a tripod. However we did use a flip to use our animaticsand found that this was a quick and easy way to film therefore we may be filming some scenes with the flip camera. At first we were worried that changing from the video camera to the flip may mean the footage quality may not be consistent, but I tested both the video camera quality and the HD flip quality and there was nothing in it. We are also going to use my DSLR camera to capture some shots for our magazine front cover as well as our poster as the quality of the pictures will be very sharp. We will also use the camera to capture ourselves filming as proof. We have also made a prop list towards the preparation of our filming so on the day we remember everything and stay organized.

8th February - Prop List

Today we made a prop list to prepare us when it came for filming, we would use this list as a checklist to ensure we have everything with us. This prop list will be given to the entire group, including the actors, so everyone has a good idea of what is needed and the actors are aware of what their costumes consist of etc. We will also be adding to the prop list as time goes on

Prop List

- Video Camera
- HD Flip Camera

- Digital DSLR Camera

- Tripod

- Costumes

- Suit

- Fedora (Hat)

 - Smart shoes

- Tie

-- Sunglasses

- Weapons e.g. shovel

- Toothpicks

- Envelopes

- Matches

- Cigarettes/Cigar

- Mug shots

- Pack of cards

- Money

Props

Last week we began to make our props towards the lead up of our filming. We wanted to have a specific shot in our trailer where the audience is able to see the 'Gangsters' mug shots. To make our mug shot information cards we first drafted them on powerpoint ensuring we used the correct font for the mugshot card. We made the background black and added white font ensuring the font was consistent in style and size for all of the mug shots. We then printed the mug shot out in A4 and backed it onto card so they were more sturdy and would stand out better on camera. We also had to do a test to make sure you were able to see the mug shots through the camera incase we needed to make any minor adjustments such as making the font bolder/bigger or the card itself bigger etc. The mug shot information cards may aslso come in handy for our magazine front cover or poster as they are an ideal props to give away the genre of our film.

Animatics

On Friday 13th February we filmed our story board that we had previously drawn, we did this using the flip. As we started to film the first page of our story board we realised the font was too hard to see as it wasnt bold enough which meant we then had to do it again. We solved this problem quickly and effectivly so we were able to get on with filming. We will be using our storyboard to look back on and use as a reference when it comes to filming. 

 As we filmed our animatics in the classroom the backgrond noise was a little distracting, therefore we made the decision to delete this when we edited it. We uploaded our footage to Final Cut Express. Our first step was to lock the section we wanted to keep which was the pictures, which then left the sound unlocked making it easier to delete. This was really simple and straightforward which meant we were able to complete this task quickly. We then had to render our footage, we did this by pressing 'Ctrl' and 'R'. We found that this really wasnt challenging but was a really good programme to use to achieve exactly what we wanted, we also found it to be really simple and straightforward.

This is our anamatic video: