Recording our voices:

Work completed individually

On monday, Chloe, Tayla and I borrowed a microphone off the school and decided to record our voice-over for our film. When we got the microphone we realised there was a few problems:

1. There was no battery
2. When we did plug it into the school computer, we had trouble finding what software to use for recording
3. We couldn't find a software to use for recording

What we actually ended up doing?

1. I had to go home and bring my laptop into school, so we can find a software to use when recording

2. Bringing in batteries ..

Outcome:

1. When we did put batteries into the microphone, the mic was still not working, so we decided to ditch the microphone and use the microphone on my laptop.
2. We used iMovies on my laptop - a software - to record, but we had to record whilst a film was playing as it was supposed to be a "voiceover", so therefore, we videoed a short clip in photobooth, and exported it over to iMovies to record a voiceover - which ended up successfully.

How will we record our voiceover for our film?

1. We have decided that we will record our voices after filming as we know how to use iMovies, and it will be easier in a way, as then we will know how fast or slow we should talk whilst the film is playing.
2. iMovie also allows us to add text and sound effects onto a film, so this will allow us to add credits into the film and certain sound effects at certain scenes in the film.

iMovies



Photobooth



Lighting:

Work completed individually

For todays lesson, we were taught on how to use different and specific colours - rainbow colours - to achieve the "white" lighting look in films, for example, if a room had yellowy lighting, by using a piece of blue paper and using the "white balance tool" on the camera and focus onto the paper for a while, the room will magically appear brighter and whiter on camera, and this helps set the atmosphere and mood of a particular scene, without having to depend on lighting and weather etc.

Rainbow coloured spectrum

The picture below, shows a before and after shot of using the "white balancing tool" and blue paper, on the left hand side, we can see a shot with yellow lighting, and on the right hand side, we can see an improved version of the shot with whiter lighting. The shot on the right hand side, creates a more refreshing feel with a cleaner look in contrast to the one on the left hand side, moreover, the improved version looks more proffessional and the balloons and objects stand out more.

Before and After shot of using "white balance tool"

How will today's lesson help me when filming?

• Considering what lighting to use - how it will create a specific atmosphere and mood to the audience
• Experiment with the tool, and see which lighting is suitable for which scene



Success Criteria for an evaluation:

Work completed individually

For today's lesson, we were given a success criteria for the evaluation in which we had to put in order of importance. Me and Emma Gower worked together for this, and decided on we thought was the most important when analysing our work. 

I thought today's lesson was very useful as we were given a success criteria on what to include in our evaluation. Additionally, it will help and guide me through when writing my evaluation, on what to include and how to achieve a good grade!

Order of the importance when evaluating our work

For the second half of the lesson, we were evaluating and marking a piece of existing coursework. We watched a 2 minute opening from a media student from last year, and we had to mark on what we thought was good and what we thought needed improvement, below is a picture of my marking on the film "Invisible boy". 

Marking "Invisible boy"

Sound effects:

Here are some sound effects analysed by Tayla Powell as she was responsible for looking into sound effects 


I searched on YouTube and found some sound effects and music which we will be interested in using. All sound effects and music are from the same user. We will also record our own sound effects which I was not able to find online, here are the sound effects will will eventually record ourselves:

• A heavy breathing sound effect which will be played while Snow White is running through the woods
• A recording of someone biting into an apple which will be played when a black screen is shown which is within the first 2 minutes.
• We will write a script which the character Snow White will say while the opening begins. The script will be similar to the film 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' in the scene where snow white is talking about the poisoned apple.

Here are the sound effects i found online:


Snow White's Voice:
Where will this be used: Nicola, Chloe and I will get the person who we have chosen to play Snow White and design a script which will summarise the whole Snow White children fairytale however, this will mainly focus on the red apple. We will get the character to talk the script which we will use some inspiration from the film 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' (video below) which is the scene 'The Poisoned Apple.' The character we have chosen will be talking while the scene has just opened and there is a view of an establishing shot. We hope this creates a tense yet, seedy feel to the beginning of the movie.





Door Creaking:
Where will this be used: Snow White will work out of the room which will create the door to creak.

Music:
Where will this be used: This can be used as background music while Snow white throws the mirror.

Fast-paced foot steps:
Where will this be used: Snow White will be running through the woods.

Mirror smashing:
Where will this be used: Snow White will aggressively throw the mirror onto the floor.

Opening music:
Where will this be used: This music will be played within the opening of the 2 minutes. I really like this music for our concept as it begins with a child-like sound which can relate to our child-like character, however, the song has a twist to it which is similar to our opening. This music is extremely daunting and up-rising which is what attracts me to this and how it begins and starts with the same music. This music is from the famous movie 'Dead Silence' which i have asked permission to use.

Asking for permission:

I asked the YouTube owner if i could borrow this music sound track.

All the sound effect posts, i have created individually and will shortly discuss with my fellow team members which they will give suggestions on the music and sound effect ideas i have gathered.

Analysis of the film title:

Work completed individually

Film title:

Work completed individually:

Today, Chloe, Tayla and I decided to create our film title, for this we decided to use pixlr.com as we have used this online version of photoshop previously for our film institutional logo design, and all of us have used it before in our GCSE courses.



Pixlr.com

 How we created it:

• Once on the page of http://pixlr.com/editor/ we click into "open photo editor" and then click into "create a new image"
• Once we have clicked into "create a new image" a box appears for us to adjust the size of the page we would like to use - we altered the sizes to a 400 by width and 360 by height and then click "okay"
• First, we clicked on to the fill button at the side and below, we selected the colour black and filled the page in black.
• After that, we clicked onto a text box at the left hand side of the page and entered in the text "The Black Apple"
• Following after, we played around a little before finding a font that looked similar to the font I have sketched out in my plan
• We chose the colour white from the colour palette as said in the plan - to stand out against the black background
• After that, we decided to add an apple to the film title as the text itself looked quite dull and because it was in black and white, it didn't really look like a fantasy film as the colours black and white typically represent thriller and horror genres.
• We googled "red apple" on google images, and selected a picture we wanted to use in our film title, because we could not directly copy and paste the picture into pixlr, we had to copy and paste the URL into the "Open Image URL"
• We moved the apple around, and see where we wanted, and at the end we decided we wanted the apple to be behind the text, and let the text stand out from it.
• We did this by simply dragging the "apple" layer above the original layer - the text and the background and ta-da the apple sits behind the text!

The final look of the film title!

Draft of creating the film title

Work completed individualluy

During my free period, I decided to sketch out how I wanted the final film title to look like, and below are some pictures of the rough sketch and analysis I did. 

Outcome

Analysis

Analysis

Analysis

Analysis

After showing and discussing with my group, we decided that we will go ahead and use pixlr.com to create a film logo similar to the one I have sketched out.