Diary

To illustrate the work done for this project I have devised a diary in which I have logged our progress.

The bold text is what I personally did as part of the group to contribute to the activities. 

Let us begin from where it all started...

10/07/11

We came together as a group in the lesson and came up with a base of what we want as a practice trailer. We’ve decided to film a comedy called “Big Fat Sweaty Coppers” and have already discussed possible key scenes. With myself behind the camera, the rest of the group (Jeremy Razzell, James Clark and Lewis smith) will be left to acting and their contribution to post production.

12/07/11

Whilst we brainstormed further ideas outside of lesson, Jeremy devised a mind map outlining the plan of Big Fat Sweaty Coppers. One scene that we thought up was the opening scene: the camera panning across a room filled with litter from fast food and one of the fat coppers lying on the bed eating.

16/07/11

Today marked the day of our first filming session. For the scenes shot today we headed to James’ house where the activities consisted of littering his room with fast food wrappers, running him over in the car and a chase scene.

My role for the day was directing all of the camera shots, working the camera and driving the car that hits one of the big fat sweaty coppers.

As a group we constructed a device on which to attach the camera, this was so we could keep the camera still while in motion with the running character. This consisted of a wooden beam on a mountain board – we then had the camera on a stand and attached it on top of the mountain board.

21/07/11

The morning of today was filled with yet more filming for B.F.S.C.

The scene was based in the head office of the police force and involved myself playing a small cameo of the Head chef office shouting at the two incapable fat coppers.

I was involved in dressing myself up with a jumper shoved up my top and a fake moustache.  This was my chance to shine and scream at the other two coppers with cheesy dialogue “That was a shambles… I should strip you from your moustaches!”.  As I was acting on set I had to line up the camera and then Jeremy was able to hit record when ready.

29/07/11

For the shooting today we travelled to Pembury as I had a perfect road in mind for filming a chase scene. James was very helpful in creating a concoction that he would have to spit out of his mouth to look like sick. The idea behind this scene is that in the middle of a chase, detective Clark has to stop the pursuit and vomit his lunch. Our friend Joe Walker played the part of the criminal being chased as we needed a fresh new face for a fresh new character – only a very small cameo however and only needed once.

My part in today’s activities was filming the whole of the scene and again we used our invention to keep up with the characters in motion.

05/08/11

Lewis (one of the lead roles) has left the sixthform and although stating he will turn up for shooting, the rest of the team feel that this will jeopardise the rest of our filming opportunities.

13/08/11

Today’s filming was done outside of school at the local Mcdonalds drive through. The scene involved detective Clark and Smith in a car fighting over what looks like a serious case/problem. However the shot zooms out and they are only arguing over what food to get from Mcdonalds drive through.

I was again behind the camera and it was my job to jump out of the car to get the shot of the car outside the drive through at Mcdonalds. When at home I uploaded the videos onto the computer and started to put together what we had so far.

19/08/11

The final shooting took place today and consisted of Detective James Clark receiving an incoming call for assistance in his car. The detective jumps out of the car – a trail of fast food wrappers falling out with him, and slips up on a piece of litter, bangs his head and falls on the floor.

I played the role of director and filmed the various shots needed for the scene. This did include rerunning the scene so that I could capture it at multiple angles, to then edit together after.

21/08/11

From home I uploaded the rest of the footage and began to work on a draft to the final trailer. I have been using iMovie software for all the editing. Also found a few song clips that I have put in as a soundtrack to the trailer.

24/08/11

Continued editing and started adding in title screens to the trailer. Can’t help but feel slightly limited with possibly not enough clips. Never the less it’s only the practice trailer and we have enough for me to experiment with.

27/08/11

I invited Jeremy and James over to have a viewing of the close to finished draft. Very positive feedback from them both, saying it ran smoothly and had a professional feel to it.

02/09/11

Finished the final version of Big Fat Sweaty Coppers and ahead of schedule. With the time we have until we have to hand the finished product in we started to brainstorm for our official coursework trailer.

18/09/11

Today we presented our practice trailers to sir and the rest of the class. As a group we were very enthusiastic about airing our Big Fat Sweaty Coppers trailer and it was well received. The rest of the class had very positive things to say about it – especially about how the music fitted well with what was happening on screen.

25/09/11

A task is set within the lesson. In two days time we must stand up in front of the class and pitch our new film idea and evaluate how the last practice trailer went, including what techniques we will include in the next trailer from the experience.  Later on in the day we completed half of the powerpoint presentation on what we learnt from the practice trailer.

27/09/11

Presentation day. My group and I allocated ourselves positions to play within the presentation; this basically consisted of who would read from what slide. The video footage of our presentation is posted up on the blog and below is a link to it.

- >Link to video presentation<

Here is the powerpoint that we presented in the video -  >Slideshow powerpoint<

we also had to gather some audience feedback from the someone in the class. This person had to answer questions we had relating to our new idea for the plot of our new film trailer. We interviewed Betty May and the video can be found on this blog. Here is the link below

-  >Link to Betty's interview<

5/10/11

Outside of lesson brainstorming of possible names for the film.  Among other absurd and entertaining names for the film, we settled on one for the time being, however it may change in the future. So without further a due, exclusively, I give you the name of our film…. Betrayal and Retribution.

15/10/11

So after a bit of a gap in progress we have in fact made great progress. Today, being a day when we are all free, we travelled to Pembury and broke into the abandoned house for a shot sequence. This scene was the bit in the trailer when Mark Steele goes looking for his son in a horrible abandoned building.

I was the man behind the camera and ended up scavenging the house for quality angles and heights for the best shots.

17/10/11

I but together the clips we had shot from the abandoned house into a montage and added a rough soundtrack to it.

22/10/11

Showed the group what I had put together

27/10/11

We presented the work I had already shown to group to the rest of the class, and Mr Morris. Here we were giving a positive comment from Mr Morris – “ looking very promising guys, I’m liking the camera work and the music fits nicely. However you need to have more shots”

10/11/11

we shot some scenes just outside of school today – round the back of the sports centre. I chose this location because it has a very urban feel to it and has some interesting and useful “landmarks”, like the metal stairs running off the side of the building that feature in the trailer.  This scene involve the character of Mark Steele (played by jez) chasing down a mysterious hooded character (played by james)

Again, I did the filming for this

18/11/11

Today’s filming featured a special guest cameo. Our friend Tom played the role of the priest who Mark Steele visits for some religious enlightenment. We used the school chapel for the interior to this scene. Very well performed Mr Tom Harrington-Voight.

I filmed and collaborated with Tom and Jez in finding a bible verse for Tom to read that would be appropriate for the trailer.

25/11/11

I put together the clips from the chapel and put them in with the previous montage of clips we have

01/12/11

We presented what we had so far to the class and Mr Morris.

10/01/12

Back to work! Nice Christmas break, in which my mind was partially thinking about Christmas dinner and partially about future plans for Betrayal and Retribution.

New scene thought up involving the character of Mark Steele throwing himself around his study in anger.

20/01/12

I spontaneously decided to travel up to Sevenoaks to Jeremy’s home in the countryside. This was to film various shots including the opening scenes… yes we did not shoot chronologically.

Finally, these scenes involved my presence in front of the camera. I played my role of friend with bad news. I had to set the camera up on a stand and hit record before stepping into the scene.

Due to losing light we didn’t manage to finish filming all we needed and agreed to set another date to film before my departure.

25/01/12

BACK TO JEREMY’S

29/01/12

Due to the scenes recorded at Jeremy’s home, we are very close to being finished.

Today I added all the new footage to the trailer in progress and selected a song for the opening sequence.

I actually used the same song that featured in the trailer “shooter” that we looked at in the research stage of the project. The song fitted perfectly in that trailer, as does it in ours.

03/02/12

Today was spent getting the last few scenes for the trailer. These were the office scenes and we used certain rooms in the school for it. We actually used two separate rooms to create the look we wanted; this was a good enough desk from one room and a large window overlooking the rest of the school in another. Through editing no one can tell the difference.

I acted in this for a bit as well with the dramatic dialogue “you can’t keep living your life like this!” For this I needed to dress up in a smart suit.

10/02/12

Further editing on my behalf as I added in some title screens as well

15/02/12

So close to being finished. Needed one more shot to be filmed, which I had forgot about. This was the clip illustrating the death of his wife. Had my mum and dad help me for this at home. We made up a murder scene in which my dad was taking a picture of my dead mum (Mark Steele’s dead wife).

17/02/12

Finished the whole trailer! Last minute editing involved all the scenes rewinding in a few quick seconds to building music and then all turns black and the title ‘Betrayal and Retribution’ explodes onto the screen.

Very Happy with the end result and can’t wait to show Jeremy and James tomorrow.

18/02/12

The Premier of Betrayal and Retribution went down a treat. Everyone loved it and Mr Morris seemed to think it would score extremely high. Now uploaded to Youtube and Facebook means I will be able to get some feedback.

That concludes the diary of Jack Welch Director of media A-level project 2011-2012. Id like to thank everyone involved, my team and, of course, the people who made this all possible… You, the board.

Jack out!

End transmission.